Rubbish Disposal

Pack rats and procrastinators of Thousand Oaks, take heed: Saturday is the time to dispose of the old couch, the washing machine and all the other trash and junk in the garage. Thousand Oaks will hold its annual Community Cleanup and Recycling Day on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Conejo Creek Park, opposite the Thousand Oaks Teen Center on Janss Road.

On garbage day, Dennis Lorenzetti worries not about beating the trash truck to the curb. There is no trash service for his forested acre here on California's northern outskirts. There isn't even a curb for a trash can, only a carpet of pine needles. So out he heads behind the cedar-sided wood shop, alongside the pigpen, where his teenagers keep three hogs. There between the pines, Lorenzetti practices rural America's time-tested method of garbage disposal: He fires up the burn barrel.

A 25-year-old inmate was back in custody Friday after escaping from a state prison in Lancaster by stowing away inside a garbage truck--only to wind up compacted into a bale of trash and dumped in a landfill, authorities said. The injured prisoner, Steven Charles Brigida, called for help Thursday morning as a landfill tractor closed in on the trash mound in which he had been discarded.

His little black dog, Eva, wandered over first, sniffing with curiosity. Then Lennie Arkinstall strode across a mound of pickle weed and sea lavender in the Los Cerritos Wetlands, drawn by the unnaturally bright blues and reds of something rustling in a clump of tall grass. It was an empty potato chip bag, just like the tens of thousands of pieces of trash the self-proclaimed steward of the marsh has removed from the area over the last four years.

The federal government barred ships from dumping plastic garbage into the ocean, saying hundreds of thousands of birds, marine mammals and turtles die each year after eating or becoming entangled in the debris. In announcing the new regulations, Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner said plastic debris accounted for 4% of all refuse that is tossed into the ocean each year and its resistance to natural breakdown means it can persist in the environment for long periods of time. The Coast Guard rules comply with an international agreement known as the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships.

From the turnpike, they are easy to see--dozens and dozens of dump trucks, each overflowing with tree limbs, corrugated metal, roof shingles, plywood. They snake a lengthy and tedious path to the local dump, where a huge fire is raging in violation of this state's strict environmental regulations.

It isn't toxic, hazardous or combustible. It doesn't even stink. Still, after a 15-year global odyssey, the last of 14,000 tons of incinerated garbage from Philadelphia has yet to find a permanent home. About 3,000 tons now sit in the Santa Lucia, a hopper barge docked in the St. Lucie Canal about seven miles west of here. The trash looks benign. When the sun catches the bits of broken glass amid the dirt and sludge, the waste sparkles. A couple of bushy weeds have sprouted.

More than three months after the Northridge earthquake, many streets in the San Fernando Valley still look like scenes from the town of Bedrock--with piles of concrete rubble heaped at curbs waiting for city crews to haul them away. Cleaning up after January's 6.8 temblor has proven far more difficult, and vastly more expensive, than anyone figured in the days immediately following the quake.

Some of the people rummaging through your garbage may look like they only want a few bottles or cans to recycle, but fraud investigators say they might be getting a lot more cash from your trash. They're called "dumpster divers," crooks who search your trash for discarded charge receipts and bills, brokerage statements and transaction slips, old checks--anything financial.

Mayor Richard Riordan on Thursday announced the start of a city campaign urging residents to report illegal trash dumping. About 100 billboards and bus shelter signs have been set up in South-Central and East Los Angeles. The signs, in English and Spanish, feature a photo of an alleyway stuffed with trash, alongside a message asking residents to anonymously report any illegal dumping by calling (800) 996-2489.

The pile of freeway rubble five stories tall has towered over a quiet Huntington Park neighborhood for seven years, menacing residents with airborne dust and earning an ominous name: La Montana, or the mountain. But La Montana is finally crumbling. On Monday, a bulldozer plowed into the 50-foot-high remains of the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway, as workers fed concrete into a giant crusher machine that pulverized 100-pound slabs into inch-sized chunks.

It isn't toxic, hazardous or combustible. It doesn't even stink. Still, after a 15-year global odyssey, the last of 14,000 tons of incinerated garbage from Philadelphia has yet to find a permanent home. About 3,000 tons now sit in the Santa Lucia, a hopper barge docked in the St. Lucie Canal about seven miles west of here. The trash looks benign. When the sun catches the bits of broken glass amid the dirt and sludge, the waste sparkles. A couple of bushy weeds have sprouted.

A federal court victory by environmentalists has dealt a setback to plans by Los Angeles County to dispose of much of the area's trash by sending it by railroad to an enormous trash dump at an abandoned gold mine on the eastern edge of Imperial County. An appeals court in San Francisco last week nullified a land exchange between Gold Fields Mining Corp. and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that would have allowed creation of an immense trash dump east of the desert hamlet of Glamis.

Long a victim of abuse and neglect, the Los Angeles River enjoyed a spring cleaning Saturday morning when an estimated 2,000 volunteers descended on the riverbed at various spots to pick up trash. From Encino to Los Feliz to Long Beach, volunteers carrying trash bags donned work gloves and picked through the wild grass and other plant life on the riverbed--which is mostly dry at this time of year--to collect debris.

In a move that could help clean up the Long Beach waterfront, the state on Friday gave $650,000 to the county to remove trash and debris from the mouth of the heavily polluted Los Angeles River. The funding is a part of a growing effort on several fronts to restore the urban waterway, which is the largest watershed in the region. Over the years, it has been transformed into a huge receptacle for trash, contaminated runoff and other pollutants.

Mayor Richard Riordan on Thursday announced the start of a city campaign urging residents to report illegal trash dumping. About 100 billboards and bus shelter signs have been set up in South-Central and East Los Angeles. The signs, in English and Spanish, feature a photo of an alleyway stuffed with trash, alongside a message asking residents to anonymously report any illegal dumping by calling (800) 996-2489.

Plans to eliminate a rubble pile that residents in Huntington Park call "the mountain of death" continue to be bogged down in legal wranglings between community activists and the rubble heap's owner. The mountain of debris consists mostly of chunks of the Santa Monica Freeway damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake. For years, residents have complained that dust and grit from the heap have caused respiratory problems and other ailments.

A Los Angeles City Council panel recommended Monday that the city haul its trash to two San Fernando Valley landfills after the city's main dump, Lopez Canyon Landfill in Lake View Terrace, closes June 30. The Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee recommended that the 820,000 tons of trash that the city dumps annually go to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill near Granada Hills and the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley.

Plans to eliminate a rubble pile that residents in Huntington Park call "the mountain of death" continue to be bogged down in legal wranglings between community activists and the rubble heap's owner. The mountain of debris consists mostly of chunks of the Santa Monica Freeway damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake. For years, residents have complained that dust and grit from the heap have caused respiratory problems and other ailments.

The stretch of 82nd Street between Figueroa Street and Vermont Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles has the neglected look of many inner-city neighborhoods, but Thursday morning it got some unexpected attention. Under the surprised gaze of residents, a strike force made up of county and city agencies swept along the street, painting over graffiti and citing homeowners for health and safety violations.