Cities Expand Their Recycling Roles : Environment: Six communities now pick up recyclables at the curb. But the flurry of activity has set the stage for trash turf wars countywide.

Spurred by a five-year state deadline to reduce trash by 25%, six of Ventura County’s 10 cities now pick up at least a portion of their residents’ recyclables at the curb, officials say.

The programs by Ventura, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Santa Paula, Fillmore and Ojai divert about 750 tons a week from rapidly filling county landfills. Oxnard, which already recycles about 50 tons a week through a program for businesses, will decide Tuesday whether to move ahead with a 3,000-home curbside pilot program for residences in December.

Moorpark could have a program for 500 homes by next month, but Camarillo and Port Hueneme are still in planning stages for curbside programs, city officials said.

City-sponsored programs to pick up bottles, cans, cardboard and newspapers at curbside are convenient for residents and popular politically, officials say. But they bring contention as well.

The flurry of recycling activities--the result of legislation known as AB 939 requiring cities to reduce trash sent to landfills 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000--sets the stage for trash turf skirmishes countywide.

Cities may line up against a regional agency for control of the trash, and private trash haulers against private recyclers.

Michael Smith, senior vice president at Simi Valley’s GI Industries, which hauls rubbish for four east county cities and operates a recycling processing center, said Ventura County should meet the state mandates with no problems.

“I think our county is going to be way ahead of the rest of the state in meeting our 939 goals,” Smith said of the state’s legislation. “The haulers are doing all they can and the cities like to be involved because it’s great for them politically.”

In Simi Valley and Ventura, the two cities considered the front-runners in county recycling, private processing centers sort and ship recyclables to markets around the state, country and world. Ventura’s Intermediate Processing Center, operated by Gold Coast Recycling, is by far the most sophisticated in the county with its indoor operation and state-of-the art machinery, officials say.

The Ventura curbside recycling program, which reroutes about 300 tons of trash a week into the recycling center, costs Ventura about $500,000 annually, but it’s well worth the money, said Terry Adelman, the city finance director who heads the city’s recycling program.

“It’s doing the right thing for the county and the environment,” said Adelman, who has dubbed himself the “director of cash and trash.” “It’s keeping trash out of the landfill that only has three years left, and it will be cheaper in the long run than using a landfill.”

As the amount of recyclables handled goes up, the fixed costs of buildings and machinery go down, Adelman said.

Simi Valley is setting up recycling bins in six shopping centers and plans to open a drop-off center for paints, motor oil and other household hazardous wastes this fall, in addition to a citywide curbside program.

Elsewhere in the county, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Thousand Oaks have begun an innovative program in conjunction with the Ventura Regional Sanitation District that mixes yard cuttings with sewage sludge to produce a soil fertilizer. The Regional Sanitation District uses the mixture to help its landscaping at the closed Coastal landfill.

e district, a nonprofit public agency directed by a board of representatives from western Ventura County cities, operates landfills at Oxnard and Toland Road between Fillmore and Santa Paula.

As the successes of recycling programs countywide continue to mount, so does the competition for contracts and trash.

Two processing center operators--Gold Coast in Ventura and GI Industries in Simi Valley--want to build plants in the east county to handle recyclables collected in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo and the Santa Rosa Valley.

Further, Gold Coast, which already receives recyclables at its Ventura facility from Ventura, Oxnard, Fillmore and Santa Paula, is negotiating with the city of Camarillo and plans to approach Port Hueneme, Gold Coast Manager Chris R. Webb said.

But the Regional Sanitation District, which will have only the small Toland Road landfill left after the Bailard landfill in Oxnard closes in 1993, also plans its own processing center. It is in the midst of a years-long planning process to build a center in Saticoy or Oxnard that is bigger than that of Gold Coast or GI Industries. The Regional Sanitation District’s center, which officials hope will open in 1993, could serve Camarillo, Oxnard and Port Hueneme, said Resource Recovery Manager Mike Ewens.

It was originally designed to serve the city of Ventura as well, but the city beat the sanitation district to the punch.

“We tried to work with Regional Sanitation,” Ventura Finance Director Adelman said. But the district was unwilling to pursue the necessary county permits to operate a sorting center at its Bailard landfill in Oxnard, and the city wanted to begin working toward the state-mandated goal to reduce its 1,750 tons of trash a week to 1,312 tons a week. With about 300 tons a week diverted now, the city is on its way, Adelman said.

“The problem is, Regional Sanitation is still talking about it,” Adelman said. “It might have been a little embarrassing, but we had to get on line.”

At the bottom of the pile in the battle over bottles, cans, paper and cardboard is the private recycler, area businesses say.

With city contracts that guarantee Gold Coast and GI Industries a certain profit, the cities are subsidizing two private companies and making it difficult for a small-potatoes recycler to turn a buck, said Wade Schlosser, president of the privately owned Simi Valley Recycling.

With their earnings guaranteed, Gold Coast and GI Industries can unload their products at a price that ruins the market, Schlosser said.

“It doesn’t matter to them if they make a profit or not,” Schlosser said. “All they understand is whatever they get stuck with, they will pass the cost on to somebody else.”

Schlosser and other recyclers, on the other hand, have to bear the costs of the changing markets for recycled materials, he said.

In addition, the cities should have chosen longtime recycling companies for their processing contracts instead of two companies associated with rubbish haulers, Schlosser said.

GI Industries has trash-hauling contracts in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark, while Harrison and Sons, a part owner in Gold Coast, hauls trash in Ventura and other western county cities.

“If you want to recycle, why not go to someone who’s been in the business for 10 years, not some garbage company that learned about recycling yesterday,” he said.

Dan Murphy, owner of D&J; Recycling in Ventura, said he fears that Gold Coast will eventually open a so-called buyback center to the public, in which individuals trade their recyclables for cash.

“Now there are four recyclers in Ventura and that would hurt us all,” Murphy said.

Gold Coast Manager Webb acknowledged that the city guarantees a certain level of profit, but said the company has $3 million invested in the center and a limited time to make it profitable.

“Our contract says when the Regional Sanitation District facility comes on line, we either will sell out to them or we’ll go out of business,” he said. “We won’t compete. That was the business risk we had to take to get the contract.”

Ewens at Regional Sanitation District said markets for selling the recycled goods, especially newspapers, should stay soft through the next few years until new and expanded paper mills become operational.

But Jocelyn Reed, deputy director of environmental services in Simi Valley, said the efforts of private and public recyclers alike all contribute to the ultimate goal: reducing the trash dumped in landfills countywide.

“This recycling process is a kind of countywide effort,” she said. “We’re all learning from each other.”

* RECYCLING BOOM: Recycling of bottles and cans is up 50% for the state. A3

* CASH FOR TRASH: A list of privately run recycling centers in Ventura County. B4