And, some critics suggest, reduce the quality of service, to boot.
Take the massive Park La Brea, a 60-year-old complex on Fairfax Avenue composed of 18 high-rises with 4,255 apartment units, spread over 50 acres. For more than five decades, its trash has been picked up by A&B Disposal, owned by the Mazaroff family. The Mazaroffs created specialized bins that fit into the Park La Brea towers to catch trash dumped by residents into chutes, which then are carried by trucks through the complex's narrow, private streets.
PHOTO BY TED SOQUI
Matthew, Nancy and Greg Kotanjian: Small firms, with their secure local jobs, expect to be wiped out.
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A&B comes daily and is always on-call.
"We really don't think we're going to get the level of service and understanding of our needs" if forced by the City Council to do business with a big monopoly, says Ron Bowdoin, Park La Brea's general manager.
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, the candid fiscal adviser to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, opposes the plan for the same reason Bowdoin does. "Businesses, if they're not happy with their service, if their needs can't be met, they'd be stuck using the hauler the city selects for them," Santana says.
He says many of LAANE's environmental goals could be met if the City Council simply mandated more stringent benchmarks for recycling and fuel-efficiency standards.
Of course, that probably wouldn't get L.A. to zero waste, but then again, neither does "zero waste."
Sean Rossall of Cerrell Associates, a lobbying firm hired by a small group of trash haulers including AAA, says independent haulers, in response to the union plan that threatens several hundred jobs, are offering the City Council the same basic deal: "Cleaner trucks on the road, better workplace safety and more recycling."
While AAA hires only union drivers, not all small trash haulers do so — and therein lies the rub. Opponents of the monopoly franchise plan believe the real intent is to turn the private L.A. trash business into a union membership push, then apologize later for skyrocketing trash-removal costs and monopoly bad behavior.
"Unfortunately, this city is run by labor," says Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association. "Every franchise will [be awarded by the City Council] only to labor-friendly companies if this passes — regardless of what the cost is."
LAANE's Good calls that "a red herring," insisting that requiring union labor is "not on the table."
He says the exclusive franchises would hold haulers accountable, since officials would have fewer companies to regulate. He claims the free market in Los Angeles fails to "serve the largest interests of the community" by wastefully sending trucks all over town and not pursuing the utopian zero-waste plan.
Matthew Kotanjian finishes up his South Central route and drives over to Southland Disposal in East Los Angeles, where the garbage is separated. Some will be recycled, the rest burned for energy. His dad, Greg, calls him, wanting to know where he is. "I'll be back soon, Pop," he says.
Greg is 66 and all that bouncing can wreck a man's back. But he can hardly believe that, after more than 100 years, his family soon could be out of business. "To get thrown out on your ears after all these years of working," he says. "All the politics ... I'm disgusted at the whole arrangement."
