SIMI VALLEY : Yard Waste Recycling Program to Begin

Just in time for the new year, Simi Valley is launching a yard waste recycling program to encourage residents to sort their garbage and help the city meet state-mandated trash reduction goals.

Over the next several days, glossy brochures featuring a pair of cartoon toucans will arrive in the mailboxes of the city’s 27,000 residential trash customers.

Using the tropical toucans as mascots, the brochures explain the “two cans for trash, two cans for yard waste” theme of the program.

An additional 10,000 pamphlets will be handed out to children at public schools throughout the city, said Joe Hreha, Simi Valley’s deputy director for environmental services.

The brochures explain that starting Jan. 1, residents will no longer be allowed to mix their trash in up to four cans collected by trash haulers each week.

Two cans will be designated for trash and two for grass clippings, tree branches and horse manure, which will be taken to the Worm Concern, a Simi Valley company that uses earthworms to transform yard waste into mulch.

Residents will be allowed a one-month grace period, after which haulers will pick up only two cans of trash and two cans of yard waste per household, leaving notes for residents to explain why additional trash was left behind, Hreha said.

“What we’re asking for is very simple,” Hreha said. “We want people to take an extra step and keep their yard waste separate from other trash to help the city meet its goals.”

Under Simi Valley’s 3-year-old curbside recycling program, the city now recycles about 17% of its trash.

To meet state requirements, Simi Valley has to increase the amount of waste it diverts from the Simi Valley Landfill by an additional 8% over the next year. And by 2000, the city must recycle half of its trash or face fines of up to $10,000 a day.

Fillmore launched a waste-mulching program in the fall, and other cities around Ventura County are considering similar plans to help meet the state mandates.

Hreha said a study of Simi Valley’s trash shows that nearly 30% comes from yard waste and manure.

“If we can get people to participate in this program, it will be a big help,” Hreha said.