Oxnard Plan Offers Incentives for Recycling : Trash: Program offers monthly bill savings. New proposal seeks to encourage more to take advantage.

Preaching environmental responsibility is one way to coax Oxnard residents into separating recyclables from their trash. Instead, the city is appealing to their pocketbooks.

Since last July, the city has offered residents a $3.50 reduction in their $20.67 monthly trash bill if they would use smaller rubbish containers. But only about 1,000 of the city’s 25,000 households have signed up.

Now the City Council is considering a new program to reduce the amount of trash Oxnard sends to landfills and does not recycle.

Beginning next month, about 350 residents of the city’s Rio Lindo neighborhood will voluntarily begin separating grass clippings and tree trimmings, allowing them to use the smaller, cheaper containers.

Oxnard, like all cities and counties in California, must reduce the amount of trash it sends to landfills by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000.

City officials say that green waste makes up about 20% of Oxnard’s trash from homes. Simi Valley, Fillmore, and Thousand Oaks already have either partial or citywide green waste programs.

What Oxnard officials are counting on is that residents will use new free containers for their clippings and will not need their old 105-gallon trash containers, trading them in for 60-gallon models. And that will lead to more recycling because of lack of room.

“We’re going to get a good idea from this pilot program of how many people are going to keep the 105” gallon containers, Oxnard recycling manager Stan Hakes said.

Cash rewards to separate trash have been effective in other parts of the state and nation, particularly in Seattle, said Oxnard refuse superintendent Ruben J. Mesa. He is confident that they will work in Oxnard.

Last year’s offer to cut rubbish fees caught on in only 4% of households, Hakes said, because the city failed to promote it properly.

Representatives from several of the city’s neighborhoods, including Windsor North, Cal-Gisler, and Bartolo Square have already expressed interest in the green waste program, Mesa said.

The green waste drums will be picked up weekly along with the rest of household rubbish. The grass and clippings will then be taken to the California Wood Recycling center in Ventura, where most of it will be turned into mulch.

Oxnard officials argue the program is not only environmentally sound, but also fiscally sound--at least in the long run.

Hakes said the city pays the Bailard Landfill up to $160 to take care of a container that holds up to five tons of trash. By contrast, the city pays California Wood Recycling $40 for the same-sized container of green waste.

But officials acknowledge that the city is not likely to save anything for years, because Oxnard will have buy an extra trash truck and hire extra employee if the program is implemented citywide. Additional up-front city costs include $50 for each 60-gallon drum for the green waste.

The city eventually hopes to find a private company to sell the recycled product and further reduce city costs, Hakes said.

But the long-term benefits are significant, partially because of the expected 1997 closure of Bailard, Hakes said.

“In the future, the landfill won’t be there, so you’re talking about transportation costs as well as disposal costs,” Hakes said. “It always pays to reduce waste.”