THOUSAND OAKS : City Is 266 Tons of Trash Cleaner

A 10-foot-tall metal chimney and a 7-foot-tall stuffed animal were among the 266 tons of trash collected during a community cleanup day in Thousand Oaks, a city official said Tuesday.

Residents made 1,286 trips to Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake high schools during the daylong effort Saturday, said Grahame Watts, city recycling coordinator.

Other items included two empty beer kegs, a 7-foot-long diving board, a surfboard and a water slide, said Kitty Dill, a spokeswoman for the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, which helped sponsor the event. Thousand Oaks has held a cleanup day on Memorial Day weekend for six years.

City officials say it was the most successful cleanup ever. Household goods from garages and back yards filled 105 45-foot-long bins. They held 179 tons of miscellaneous trash, 44 tons of scrap metal and old appliances and nearly 40 tons of wood and grass clippings. Three tons of old tires also were collected.

Last year, the city collected 85 bins of trash, but did not estimate how many tons they contained, Watts said.

Most of this year’s trash was taken to the Simi Valley landfill to be recycled or dumped. Old tires went to Bailard Landfill in Oxnard to be recycled.

Some of the material was donated to Goodwill Industries in Oxnard, which picked up three truckloads of discarded appliances and used clothes and books.

No household hazardous waste was collected. Officials are considering hosting a cleanup so residents can also dump chemicals used in the home, said Watts.