Recycling

Los Angeles has put some teeth in an ordinance that made it illegal to steal bottles, cans and other items from the city's curbside recycling bins. The City Council voted Wednesday to spend $64,000 to step up enforcement of the city's anti-scavenging ordinance, earmarking $15,000 for a police crackdown in the West San Fernando Valley and setting aside $49,000 for a possible expansion of the police patrols citywide.

It used to be that when a skateboard had shredded its last empty pool or hopped its last handrail, it took a one-way trip to the great halfpipe in the sky. But thanks to a Long Beach-based company called Art of Board, there's now new life for some of the battered and broken slabs. Wooden skateboard decks - in all their scuffed, gouged and worn glory - are finding new uses in board shorts, T-shirts, hats, socks, pillows, wallets and a range of flooring and wall tiles. Through its "I Ride, I Recycle" program, Art of Board collects broken wooden skateboard decks from 400 skate/surf shops, skate parks and the like from New York City to Los Angeles.

As the camera pans through a marble room, a statue of a flute player, carved from the same beige marble, sways in time to his own music. As if fulfilling King Midas' dream, the flutist and the other statues in the room turn to gold, glittering in the light. Suddenly, a white ball appears and fills the screen with the familiar brush-stroke logo of The Wave, KTWV-FM (94.7).

Next time you get a drink on a United Airlines, flight you may notice a new cup in your hand. In an effort to become more eco-friendly, United is replacing its foam cups with recyclable plastic cups. United is not the only airline thinking about air travel's effect on the environment. Southwest Airlines has converted diesel-burning ramps, belt-loaders and other equipment to electric power and recently installed plane seats and interiors made with recyclable material. Delta Air Lines recycles some of its waste and donates money generated to Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit home building charity.

Have you noticed how recycling is all the rage in government? The voters cast down useless politicians, the government recycles them in higher appointed jobs. GLENN C. COLE Bakersfield

Timeline: Recycling in L.A. 1983: Home recycling pilot program starts 1989: State sets goal of 50% municipal waste to be recycled and diverted from landfills by 2000 1990: Yellow bin accepts glass bottles, aluminum and tin cans, and plastic bottles labeled "1" and "2"; newspapers are tied in bundles and set next to the bin 1993: Green bin added for compostable yard waste 1994: "Single-stream" pilot program allows participants to...

When it comes to recycling, we don't know how good we have it. Some Europeans cope with trash sorting requirements so finely calibrated that glass bottles, yogurt containers and newspapers have to go into different receptacles, to be collected on different schedules.

Downey's Energy Resource Center, Southern California Gas Co.'s $7.9-million junkyard showcase for energy-saving technology, will host a seminar Thursday on recycling construction materials into new buildings that are friendly to the environment. Speakers and exhibitors at "Green Exposition" will discuss government incentives for "buy-recycled" programs and present the latest in information and products associated with renewable energy.

In response to the letter from Jill Renton on raising the redemption value of bottles and cans (April 3): If the refunds were raised to 5 cents, rather than fearing more scavengers, an easy solution would be for residents to recycle bottles, cans, etc., and donate good reusable items to charity. Also, why not have a garage sale? Then trash would become just trash with nothing left to scavenge. Scavenging has always been a means of salvaging usable material from trash.

Interior designer Brian Gennett turns old book covers into striking mosaics for wall coverings, penny-tile surfaces and home décor objects that have been featured in Elle Decor magazine and are sold at Harbinger on La Cienega Boulevard. Let's cut right to it: Do people ever come at you for destroying perfectly good books? It's been mentioned to me jokingly, but, really, the books I am using are headed for the dump. There are bookstores that sell me covers that have fallen off books, and I also buy whole books at library and yard sales and the Goodwill and then recycle the paper pages.

Francisco Morataya drives a vanload of empty bottles and cans to Victar Recycling Center in Echo Park every week or so to supplement his wages as an office janitor. The 61-year-old Eagle Rock resident had been making $200 per load, enough to pay his daughter's cellphone bill. But that was before a new state law tightened the redemption rules, making it harder for people at the economic fringes to scrape by. Now his take is only $50 to $60, Morataya said. "It's really bad," he said this week, flinging plastic bottles into a garbage bin. "I can't help my daughter.

Air district officials filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking up to $40 million from a Vernon battery recycler accused of posing a health risk for emitting too much lead and arsenic. The South Coast Air Quality Management District sued Exide Technologies in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing the company - one of the world's largest manufacturers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries - of exposing tens of thousands of people to cancer-causing chemicals and failing to take timely action to address problems with pollution control systems.

After an emotional hearing that had residents of southeast Los Angeles County talking about family members who have died of cancer, air quality officials voted unanimously Friday to adopt strict new rules on emissions of arsenic, benzene and other toxic chemicals from lead-acid battery facilities. The rules, which will go into effect next month, apply to Exide Technologies in Vernon and Quemetco in the city of Industry - the only two battery recyclers west of the Rocky Mountains.

A Vernon battery recycler has once again exceeded South Coast Air Quality Management District lead limits, officials said Thursday. Officials at Exide Technologies, one of the world's leading makers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries, told air district officials Wednesday evening that an air monitor had picked up elevated lead readings late last week. The plant cut production starting Thursday morning. The latest problems with lead, the third such violation in the last 12 months, come as Exide is fighting an attempt by air district officials to temporarily shut down the plant until its air pollution control systems are improved and deemed adequate to control toxic emissions.

In an effort to deter recycling fraud, state officials Thursday announced new daily limits on the number of bottles and cans an individual can redeem at recycling centers. The regulations, which take effect Jan. 1, are part of the state's effort to stop beverage container recycling fraud , including cases where scofflaws drive trucks of cans from Arizona to recycle them in California where they can get money for them. Fraud is draining the state's $1.1-billion recycling fund “They'll have to take a lot more trips to recycling centers, which only increases the chances CalRecycle or our partners in law enforcement will catch them,” said CalRecycle Director Caroll Mortensen in a statement.

Amid an outcry over arsenic emissions from a Vernon battery recycler, the South Coast Air Quality Management District is now raising concerns about emissions from the other battery recycler in Southern California. Officials with the air district earlier this month ordered City of Industry-based Quemetco, one of two battery recyclers west of the Rocky Mountains, to perform a health risk study of its operations after a source test in November showed elevated arsenic emissions. The issue at Quemetco comes amid a fierce public outcry over emissions from Exide Technologies in Vernon.

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control has issued an emergency order directing a Vernon battery recycler to clean up lead and other metals that have been deposited near the Exide Technologies plant. In a letter released Wednesday, the agency said dust and soil samples with metals in concentrations at or near hazardous waste levels have been found near the facility and must be cleaned up by Jan. 31. The order is urgent, the agency wrote, because winter rains could wash the metals into the Los Angeles River.