VENTURA : 78 Companies Get Recycling Awards

Using recycled paper and drinking from ceramic mugs instead of Styrofoam coffee cups is considered environmentally correct at Ventura businesses.

Shredding sensitive documents to use as packing material and replacing sand with recyclable steel grit for sandblasting are regarded as environmentally progressive in Oxnard.

Those were some of the recycling strategies employed by 78 Ventura County companies that were honored with WasteWatch ’92 Awards issued by city and county officials.

“The idea is to recognize businesses that are taking the effort seriously and give them some concrete appreciation,” said Eric Werbalowsky, Ventura’s recycling coordinator.

The awards are part of a public awareness and education program sponsored by Ventura County Recycling Consortium, a group of public and private organizations interested in waste reduction.

Many of the awards went to companies that use recycled paper or durable coffee cups. Some of the companies reuse packing material and regularly have tree trimmings chopped into mulch.

Merical Computing of Ventura limits its marketing range to half an hour of driving distance from its California Street store, to reduce auto use, Werbalowsky said.

In Oxnard, Merchants Home Delivery Service shreds its confidential documents for use as packing material in its daily postal service shipments, said James E. Frandsen, the city’s public works director.

Another Oxnard business, Custom Industrial Finishes, is the first sandblasting company in the county to use fine-grained steel grit in place of sand to remove paint and other coatings from metal surfaces.

In conventional sandblasting, all of the sand that is spewed under high pressure must be disposed of along with the substance removed.