Los Angeles Recycling

Recycling in the city of Los Angeles isn’t difficult… leave an empty can or bottle outside in public space + within 30 minutes it’s been swiped up by someone who wants a few cents. Done.
But for those who want to hoard their glass, aluminum + plastic for months to do their own recycling (since we already pay the extra cents for each piece at the register anyways), this location is a convenient option.
The facility is pretty large but the employees seem to have the process streamlined so don’t let lines of other customers scare you off. Pull into the sizeable parking lot, get yourself a couple of those giant rolling bins to dump your different types of recyclables into, + then roll it into the building for weighing. The employee here will pluck out any large containers that he claims are not recyclable (detergent bottles, large Naked Juice bottles, etc) + then give you a receipt for your total refund.
From there you join the line at the cashier to get your moolah. This part probably takes the longest… but at least there’s mild entertainment in the form of watching the workers stack giant bundles of cardboard + paper in the yard.
Then 10 minutes later you walk away maybe $ 10 richer after months of recyclables hoarding. Sure this is money you’d already paid when you bought the items… But hey, at least you’re helping the environment!
The minimum amount that you receive per pound is regulated by the government
but each recycling facility may have some fluctuation in pricing based on current demands for the recycled material. Check out their coupon page
to get a couple cents more per pound then other nearby recycling centers like Downtown Metals & Recycling Center.
And for those who don’t have the time/​space/​patience to hoard recyclables so you only plan to stop by with a small amount, you have the option of being paid per container rather than by weight if have less than 50 pieces per material type (e.g. 50 glass, 50 alumnimum, 50 plastic, etc). Yes, it’s kind of a b*tch to tell the employee to count it out, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you get more money back this way. And recycling centers are legally required to comply with this request.

I decided I wanted to try my hand at recycling, and decided to try it here. I had garbage bags full of bottles, and just plastics in general. This place is huge, pretty hard to miss, and I guess prices are sorta good/​fair??? I wouldn’t know, but for me I received 93 cents per lb of plastic bottles. (because it was considered «commingled», had it been «separated» it would of been 1.05, but i still don’t know what the difference was between the two since I separated out all the clear plastics from the opaque ones) and plastics were the only thing I recycled so I don’t know the prices of anything else. This place does NOT take detergent/​laundry related bottles though, so don’t bother bringing those in. Other then that, they were really nice answering my n00bish questions and it wasn’t as hard as I thought. I’ve gotta say, it sorta feels nice to be green and make some laundry money back ;)