SIMI VALLEY : School District Joins Recycling Program

In a continuing effort to ease the flow of garbage into landfills, the Simi Valley City Council has voted to include the Simi Valley School District in its office-paper recycling program.

Rita Williams, the school district’s recycling coordinator, said she first talked with city officials about participating in the program about a month ago.

The council approved the district’s participation on Monday. Williams said it would be easier for the district to join the city’s program than to start its own.

“There’s no point in us reinventing the wheel,” Williams said.

She said that the program will be limited to district offices and that collection services are expected to begin in a few weeks. The district may decide later to expand the office-paper recycling program to its schools, she said.

Diane Davis-Crompton, director of the city’s Department of Environmental Services, said the city will ship 200 cardboard collection boxes with instructions about the program to the school district.

Davis-Crompton said the district’s participation will not cost the city extra money and will benefit everyone.

In May, the Simi Valley City Council approved the pilot program for office-paper recycling at City Hall. City officials said the program cost $1,200 to start and about $2,300 to operate annually.

But savings in trash collection charges and the sale of recyclable paper are expected to generate $2,850 a year for the city, which will more than compensate for the operating costs.

Recyclable paper constitutes about 90% of the trash generated by City Hall offices, according to a city staff report. Fax paper, computer paper and envelopes make up a large portion of the materials.

The Ventura County Government Center and Ventura and Thousand Oaks have similar recycling programs.

A recent state law requires that cities devise plans by the end of the year to reduce the flow of trash into landfills by 25% by 1995 and by 50% by the turn of the century.

As part of its effort to meet that goal, the Simi Valley City Council voted to expand its curbside recycling program in July from 13,000 households to include all 26,000 single-family residences.