From Trash to Treasure

When Andrea Rolston got word of nearly five tons of rattan poles and carved tiles lying under a tarp somewhere in Compton, the committed scavenger knew she had struck gold.

And it was all free, thanks to an elderly furniture store owner who wanted to get rid of the pile, as long as someone else hauled it away.

The tiles have since been reborn as frames, intricate screens and a delicate teahouse behind Rolston’s home in a green, overgrown valley in Ojai.

But the story doesn’t end there. Rolston wanted to share her bounty. So she placed an ad in VCMAX--a Ventura County program that traffics in society’s odds and ends--and soon others were walking off with tiles and skinny rattan poles.

“It’s very cool,” said Rolston, reclining in her yard as Matilija Creek burbled past. “Now [the poles and tiles are] all throughout Ojai. It’s right up my alley. It’s what I’m all about.”

It’s what VCMAX is all about as well.

Under state orders, cities and towns throughout California are scrambling to divert 50% of their solid waste from landfills. The Ventura County Materials Exchange program, or VCMAX, is a response to this mandate. A newsletter comes out each quarter, listing items either for sale or for free. The same items appear on the VCMAX Web site.

The idea is to convert the things people don’t want, but can’t bear to throw out, into usable commodities rather than trash for the landfill.

The successful client can look at small bits of plywood and visualize a skateboard park or see manure and think fields of flowers or gaze upon old bathtubs and imagine horse troughs.

Some items defy easy description--”gelpack chip sentry carriers,” for instance, or asphalt grindings or “EMT conduits with 90-degree elbows.”

More familiar items include copiers, computers, glass, desks, bricks, safes, televisions, manure, fax machines and furniture. Recently, some fake boulders and phony mountains from a movie set were given away.

And anyone searching for a steady supply of elephant dung can get it bagged and ready to go, courtesy of a Thousand Oaks animal trainer.

If it’s not free, it’s usually cheap--rarely more than $100.

Overseeing this world of castoffs is Pandee Leachman.

Leachman, an analyst for the county’s Solid Waste Management Department, is a relentless promoter of the program. She describes it in terms usually reserved for religious observances.

“It’s a blessing,” she said. “VCMAX is not a person, place or thing, it’s a state of mind. It’s like Oz.”

With her mind a virtual encyclopedia of recycling, Leachman knows who needs what and who has what to give. If something especially enticing is available--such as desks from a college--she might notify Habitat for Humanity. If there are toiletries, she calls homeless shelters.

Her success stems from tapping into people’s deepest creative and frugal impulses, the ones that take 500 pounds of old coffee grounds and make compost, not trash.

“You are saving the environment, you are helping make sure no more tigers or orangutans get wiped out,” said Leachman, who often links small acts of conservation to worldwide consequences.

Gerard Kapusik, manager of planning and recycling for the county’s solid waste department, said since its formation six years ago, VCMAX has helped the county divert about 45% of the solid waste that would have gone into landfills.

“It is not the norm, this program,” he said, adding he knew of just one other county--Alameda--with a similar program. The state sponsors a program called CalMAX, which is very much like VCMAX.

“This appeals to the bargain hunter and do-it-yourselfers,” Kapusik said.

Longtime clients are happy to list items.

Ernie DiGennaro Jr., 49, makes portable dance floors in Camarillo.

He sells the 4-foot lengths of leftover plywood through VCMAX for about 50 cents each.

He has had people use them for chicken roosting boxes, skateboard parks, flower boxes and attic floors.

“I was surprised by so many different things that were made of this,” he said.

Vaughn Masthoff is another VCMAX fan. His currency is tennis ball cans--about a thousand each year.

The Santa Barbara tennis instructor has seen schoolteachers convert his cans to Thanksgiving Day pilgrims, small planetariums and pencil holders.

“I don’t throw anything away,” he said. “Maybe I’m ridiculous.”

In fact, Masthoff recently despaired when his synthetic shower curtain gave out and he couldn’t find another use for it. He called Leachman, who told him to cut it up for packing material.

“I guess I’m obsessive compulsive about it,” he said. “I can’t stand the thought of my discards ending up in the landfill.”

Masthoff is now trying to recycle the tiny metal pull tabs on top of the tennis can lids.

In Ojai, Rolston sells her tiles for $2.50 to $10 each, and has given away most of her rattan poles.

Raymond Powers soaked some of the rattan in water, bent it and is now using it as a frame for a new greenhouse behind his Ojai home. He has already built a fence around his garden with rattan.

Others turned it into shower enclosures and garden trellises.

“Aside from salvaging material, it’s good to create some energy in the community,” said the 40-year-old Rolston, president of Ecospirit, a nonprofit environmental group in Ojai. “I love finding this stuff. I walk into a Macy’s or Nordstrom now and I don’t know what to do.”

FYI

Anyone interested in obtaining a VCMAX listing or advertising an item can call the Ventura County Solid Waste Management Department at 654-2477 or access the VCMAX Web site at https://www.rain.org/~swmd/vcmax