Recycling

The recent spritz of rain notwithstanding, California is in the midst of what Gov. Jerry Brown called “perhaps the worst drought [the state] has ever seen.” And yet, despite the desperate state of affairs, every day the city of Los Angeles flushes hundreds of millions of gallons of potentially potable water out to sea. I'm talking about treated sewage. In 2000, Los Angeles actually completed a sewage reclamation plant capable of providing water to 120,000 homes - the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.

A Vernon battery recycler may not resume lead smelting until its furnaces can operate in compliance with tough new air district rules on arsenic emissions. The South Coast Air Quality Management District's hearing board ruled Tuesday that Exide Technologies, which is accused of endangering the health of more than 100,000 people across southeast Los Angeles County, must maintain "negative pressure" in its furnaces. That means particles from the smelting process must be sucked into air pollution control devices that can keep toxic compounds from wafting over neighborhoods.

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.

A Vernon battery recycler under fire for contaminating nearby homes with lead and threatening the health of more than 100,000 people with its arsenic emissions is in trouble once again for emitting more than the permitted level of lead, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. As a result, the agency will order Exide to curtail its operations by 15%. On March 22 and 23, an air monitor on the northeast side of the Exide Technologies plant, near the Los Angeles River, picked up lead levels that were high enough to cause the outdoor air concentration to exceed 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter based on a 30-day average - a violation of rules designed to protect public health.

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).

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.

There's no clearer sign that state environmental regulators have failed to protect public health than the warning issued this month to parents living in the shadow of the Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon: Don't let children play in the dirt in your backyard. Tests of 39 homes and one preschool within two miles of the plant revealed that all had levels of lead in the soil that should trigger health evaluations. Lead is a neurotoxin that can cause children to develop learning disabilities and behavioral problems.

Furious residents confronted state officials at a community meeting Wednesday night to discuss the high levels of lead found in the backyards of homes near a Vernon battery recycling plant. "We've been hearing the same junk over and over and over," said Robert Cabrales, an organizer with the environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment. "When are we going to see cleanup in our communities?" The meeting came one week after state officials announced that soil testing had revealed elevated levels of lead in the soil at homes and a park north and south of the Exide Technologies plant.

The first Zoila Meeks heard about pollution from a Vernon battery recycler was when workers showed up at her Boyle Heights home last month and asked to dig up her yard to test for lead. They found it, and now Meeks and dozens of other residents in this quiet neighborhood of tree-lined streets tucked near the Los Angeles River are left wondering whether their health has been threatened, and what is going to happen to their homes. "It's very scary," said Meeks, who has a 7-month-old daughter.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to create a "strike team" that will target facilities that emit toxic pollutants - the first being the Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Vernon. The team of public health officials, prosecutors, fire department officials and others will look for ways to close the plant, which has been accused of endangering the health of more than 100,000 people with lead and arsenic emissions. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control and the South Coast Air Quality Management District regulate the plant, but Supervisor Gloria Molina said she has grown frustrated with what she views as a lack of swift action to protect public health.

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.

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.

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.