VENTURA : 1st Recycling Plant Opens in County

About 300 representatives from cities in Ventura County and throughout Southern California gathered in Ventura on Wednesday at the grand opening of the county’s first full-scale processing center for recyclables.

Guests gathered amid 1,000-pound bales of squashed aluminum cans, crushed plastic, cardboard and newspaper to learn how a discarded juice can becomes a marketable item.

After trucks leave the trash in specified areas inside the concrete-floored building, trash is moved onto conveyor belts that carry it to catwalks overhead. There, 22 pickers, each assigned to a certain type of item, pluck the items off the belt and toss them into bins.

A baler compacts the sorted trash and binds it. It is shipped to buyers around the world, said Kris Plasch, administrative assistant at Gold Coast Recycling, which operates the center. The center, located in an industrial area of Ventura south of the Ventura Freeway and west of Victoria Avenue, receives an estimated 60 tons of trash a day, she said.

The city of Ventura, which has a citywide curbside recycling program, now contributes most of the trash. Fillmore uses the center to process its recyclables from its 2,000-household curbside program.

Oxnard, Camarillo and Ojai are also considering sending their recyclables to Ventura for processing, said Eric Werbalowsky, Ventura recycling coordinator.