VENTURA : Extra Trash to Cost Residents

Carting waste will become more expensive for Ventura residents on Sept. 1 when haulers will no longer pick up extra bags of trash and yard clippings for free.

E.J. Harrison & Sons, the city’s trash hauler, will charge $5 extra for toting away anything more than the allotted waste per residence. Residents must also notify the company a day before they want to set out the extra trash.

Residents are allotted a 60-gallon container of trash, a 20-pound bag of trash and a one-foot-wide bundle of yard clippings at no extra charge, but a $5 fee will be added for each 35-pound bag of trash over the allotted amount.

The new fee is due partly to an increase in trash-dumping fees from $30 to $39.50 per ton at local landfills, but is also intended to encourage recycling by rewarding those who use more recyclable products, said Jim Harrison, owner of E.J. Harrison & Sons.

“In the past, we took pretty much whatever residents put out, but now we decided to have a system where people who put out less pay less,” Harrison said.

E.J. Harrison & Sons does not limit the amount of recyclable material it will collect per residence. The city has operated a curbside recycling program since July.