LA City Council Approves Plan To Address Illegal Dumping Of Trash

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday unanimously approved a plan designed to tackle the illegal dumping of trash and bulky items citywide, including shortening the time it takes to deploy cleanup teams.

"The city of L.A. is facing a crisis when it comes to trash, bulky items and illegal dumping," Councilman Kevin de León wrote in one of five motions introduced Feb. 1 as part of his "Clean Streets Now" plan. "In every corner of the city, pieces of furniture, loose debris and trash piles are prevalent."

Four of the five motions were passed 11-0 Tuesday. The fifth motion has not yet been considered by the council.

The motions call for the city to address illegal dumping within 48 hours of it being reported or identified. Two of the motions passed Tuesday specifically involve illegal dumping. The remaining two are aimed at efficiently deploying Bureau of Sanitation teams that handle encampment cleanups and increasing the frequency of street sweeping in commercial and industrial areas.

According to de León, the Bureau of Sanitation has nine two-person teams that deploy each day to handle illegal dumping cleanup. The Office of Community Beautification also provides funding to address loose trash and debris, and council district offices fund their own crews to address it as well.

In August, the L.A. City Council voted to reconvene a previously formed interdepartmental illegal dumping working group following a report that found illegal dumping of trash and hazardous items in the city's public areas increased 450% between 2016 and 2020.

According to Controller Ron Galperin's report released in March of 2021, the Bureau of Sanitation is struggling to keep up with the increasing amount of waste dumped on sidewalks, streets and alleys, and the waste is making it unsafe for all Angelenos.

The amount of solid waste picked up by sanitation crews increased from 9,200 tons in 2016 to 14,500 tons in the first eight months of 2020, according to the report.

According to the report, the Bureau of Sanitation's resources are spread too thin because it is charged with handling illegal dumping and cleanups of homeless encampments, and as a result, the average time it took sanitation crews to respond to illegal dumping requests in 2020 was five days.

The bureau has 19 surveillance cameras across the 470-square-mile city to catch illegal street dumping incidents.

(© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)