Junk Gets Put in Its Place During City Cleanup : Thousand Oaks: Long lines form at Conejo Creek Park as residents take the opportunity to do some spring sprucing.

There were towers of tires, crates of clothing, boxes of branches. There were mounds of mattresses, piles of plywood, carloads of concrete.

In short, there was a whole lot of junk.

Saturday’s eighth annual Thousand Oaks Community Clean-Up and Recycling Day reaped about 300 tons of trash, from rusty pink bicycles to sturdy-looking tree limbs. Hauling all manner of household junk, the city’s pack rats poured into Conejo Creek Park, waiting in lines worthy of Disneyland to jettison a year’s worth of useless odds and ends.

About 1,500 vehicles drove up to the huge blue dumpsters during the eight-hour cleanup program as thousands of sweaty but satisfied residents took care of spring cleaning, said the city’s recycling coordinator, Grahame Watts.

“I sure am happy to get rid of this stuff,” Richard Throckmorton said as he shoveled concrete chunks out of the trunk of his dusty white Cadillac.

Like many residents who took advantage of the once-a-year cleanup day, Throckmorton said he had been staring at the junk in his back yard for months, wondering how to get rid of it without paying a hefty fee for landfill dumping.

“It’s a real nuisance to dispose of,” Throckmorton said, scouring his trunk for the last bits of rubble, which had been left in the back yard of his new house.

Edging forward in double lines of overloaded cars, some residents waited up to an hour to sort their junk into the designated dumpster or to hand off old appliances and furniture to the Goodwill truck.

Bob Calverley commented sarcastically, “This really makes for a thrilling weekend,” as he trucked in a carload of maple tree branches. On his second trip, Calverley came prepared for the 45-minute wait with a thick book.

About 30% of the material collected Saturday will be given to charities or recycled, including tires, scrap metal, yard trimmings and newspapers. The city’s tab for the annual event runs about $15,000--paid for by revenues from each homeowner’s monthly trash disposal bill, Watts said.

“This is just one more thing that makes Thousand Oaks a wonderful place to live,” resident Pat Hensel said.

A few of the 25 city workers on hand to direct traffic and sort trash managed to salvage some treasures from the junk.

Public works employee Art Dennis found a perfectly operable hand-held vacuum and a chair that he planned to turn into a planter.

Standing next to a trash can full of American flags and a scraggly plastic plant, Dennis said he could hardly fathom the bizarre assortment he was handling.

“This is just unbelievable,” agreed Sharon Morris as she looked out on the bustling park. Morris herself was hauling an unusual collection of trash, including dead tree branches, the broken seat of a truck, old railroad ties and other knickknacks that the previous tenants of her house had left behind.

Many dumpers said the cleanup day motivated them to dust off their work gloves. With two days left to relax, they said, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend seemed like a perfect time for spring cleaning.

“It’s a great service--and it keeps people from dumping the stuff in the fields, I hope,” said Dan Kilgore.

Thousand Oaks will also sponsor free Household Hazardous Waste Collection Days on June 12 and 13. Residents of the city or adjacent unincorporated areas must make appointments to drop off hazardous materials, including used motor oil, paints, pesticides, antifreeze, batteries and fluorescent light tubes. To make an appointment, call 497-8611, Ext. 424.