VENTURA : Increase in Garbage Rates Recommended

A Ventura City Council subcommittee recommended Wednesday that trash collection rates be increased to subsidize future recycling services for businesses across the city.

If adopted by the council later this month, the new rates would raise commercial trash collection rates by 8.8%, residential bills by 3.4% and industrial rates by 1.7%. The new rates will take effect July 1 for commercial and industry customers and Sept. 1 for residential customers.

Environmental coordinator Steve Chase said the hike in commercial rates will pay for new recycling services that the city will offer to all businesses in Ventura, beginning in March, 1994. Businesses will not be required to sign up for recycling services, but the city plans to eventually impose a rate structure that would penalize companies that don’t recycle, he said.

“The only way we can meet (trash reduction) mandates is to begin aggressively pursuing commercial and industrial recycling,” Chase said. A state law requires that all California cities and counties cut the amount of trash sent to landfills by 25% before 1995. By the year 2000, they must slash it by 50%.

The council’s waste subcommittee also recommended raising residential rates in order to partly offset an anticipated hike next year.

According to Chase, rising landfill costs and recycling costs will make it necessary to raise residential rates 9.4% next year if the council does not adopt a 3.4% raise this year.

In a related action, the committee recommended approving a seven-year contract with longtime city trash hauler E.J. Harrison & Sons Inc. The $70-million agreement--reached after four months of negotiations--is the largest contract awarded by the city, Chase said.