Lure of Cash Brings Many to Recycling Firm

Despite the availability of curbside recycling throughout Simi Valley, station wagons filled with bags of bottles and cans keep rolling into the parking lot of the city’s only private recycling center.

The reason is as clear as the writing stamped on a can of soda: CA REDEMPTION VALUE. Cold hard cash.

“Money is 99.9% of the reason they come here,” Simi Valley Recycling Center Inc. manager Perri Jean Schlosser said. “No matter what they say, that cash is what’s on their minds.”

Schlosser and her family have operated the center for nearly 20 years. They now have branches in Thousand Oaks and Santa Clarita, but the Simi Valley center does the biggest business. According to Schlosser, 150 people a day drop by to exchange recyclables, including paper and scrap metal, for cash.

The center pays about 66 cents for a pound of cans, plus scrap value. But Schlosser said some customers try to inflate their earnings by filling cans with sand, rocks, or even occasionally trying to beef up the weight by turning them in still full of soda.

Representatives from area charity groups and schools are some of her most faithful customers, Schlosser said. “It’s an excellent fund-raiser for churches and civic organizations,” she said.

As for cutting into the city’s curbside recycling business, Schlosser said that isn’t a problem.

Joe Hreha the deputy director of the city’s Environmental Services Department, agreed. He said the city encourages use of private recycling centers.

He said the city’s “Toucan” campaign to expand the curbside program has been a success. By allowing people to recycle more items at the curb, including more yard waste, Hreha said the city has been able to divert nearly 60 tons of yard debris a day from landfills.

The Simi Valley Recycling Center is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.