Council Signs Pact for 400-Ton-a-Day Recycling Center

The Ventura City Council on Monday approved a contract with a newly formed private recycling company that will allow the city to recycle five times as much refuse as it does now.

On a 6-0 vote, council members approved an agreement with Gold Coast Recycling Inc., a consortium of three local garbage disposal companies, to develop and operate a recycling center near Victoria Avenue and the Ventura Freeway.

The center, expected to open between mid-May and early June, will help Ventura comply with state orders requiring cities to bury 25% less waste in local landfills by the year 1995, and 50% less by the year 2010.

City officials expect the center, with a capacity of up to 400 tons a day, to become a regional recycling facility for cities across the county, at least until a similar facility being planned by Ventura Regional Sanitation District is in operation.

“This is a major commitment,” said city Finance Director Terry Adelman. “It took a city with the courage to put in the time and resources that are needed to make this happen.”

Ventura currently runs a citywide curbside recycling program that collects about 25 tons of recyclable materials a day. The materials are taken to a truck yard in Saticoy, where they are packaged and sold by E.J Harrison, the city’s refuse disposal contractor.

Under the five-year contract approved Monday, the city will pay Gold Coast $170,000 a month to take in 125 tons of recyclable materials each day. The recycling company will then package and sell the materials.

The city’s curbside program, which began last October and gradually expanded to include 5,000 households throughout the city, has been so successful it has encouraged the city to seek ways to expand it, Adelman said.

Adelman believes the bulk of the increase in recyclable materials the city collects will come from local industry and businesses. The city will target corrugated cardboard and high-grade paper.

By September, he expects the city to extend the recycling program to 15,000 single-family homes along with multifamily dwellings and mobile home parks which don’t get recycling services now.

He said the Saticoy truck yard is operating at full capacity and the city has subsidized it to the tune of $300,000 since its October opening.

The city will share with Gold Coast the revenues from selling recyclable materials. The sharing agreement gives Gold Coast 10% off the top of all revenues, plus gradually increasing fees per ton of recycled materials sold.

Adelman said the center will save the city about $1 million in fees it now pays each year to Ventura County for dumping potentially recyclable materials in the Balliard landfill near the Santa Clara River.