Recycling Project for Anaheim

One problem nagging most communities is getting rid of tons of trash economically and conveniently. Growing numbers of Orange County cities are finding an answer at the curb in front of homes.

The solution is curb-side recycling and the latest city to try it is Anaheim, where a pilot project for about 11,000 households was recently approved. The Anaheim project is designed to save the city money by using new, partially automated trash trucks and by selling the recyclable materials that residents put in containers provided by the city.

Brea and Laguna Beach also have approved recycling programs, following the lead of Irvine, which last year was the first Orange County community to adopt the approach. Newport Beach also has a program, but so far it consists only of picking up newspapers once a month.

If results in Irvine after one year of operation are a good measure, other cities will soon be adopting similar curb-side recycling plans. We would quarrel only with a 80-cent monthly feethe city added to the existing trash bill. In our view, basic government services, including trash pickup, should be financed from the general fund.

Building more landfills to hold the mountains of trash generated in a heavily populated and still growing urban area like Orange County is a political as well as environmental problem. Locations that are suitable and acceptable to residents, who want neither the landfill nor the trash-truck traffic it generates anywhere near their homes, are hard to come by.

Irvine, Anaheim, Brea and Laguna Beach have found curb-side recycling to be the best way to dispose of trash. Other communities probably would, too, if they also weighed the economic and environmental alternatives.

MORE EDITORIALS

Orange County opinion pages in Part II.