Fountain Valley Trash Fees to Rise : Recycling: Residential rate increase of $3.20 a month will help pay for a materials recovery facility.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY —  To pay the cost of recycling trash, residents will be billed $3.20 more per month.

The City Council has approved increasing residential trash fees to $15.20 a month, effective in late January.

State law requires cities to reduce landfill waste by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000 or face penalties of up to $10,000 a day.

The city’s refuse hauler, Rainbow Disposal Co. Inc., is building a materials recovery facility to process recyclable materials. The recycling program is scheduled to start in March or April.

Rate increases for commercial and industrial businesses were approved in July.

Mayor John Collins said that while city officials have complained about the state requiring cities to recycle without giving them the money to do to it, he supports the law.

“I wish we got some money from the state,” Collins said. “But it makes sense to me to do something about solid waste, recycling, education and environmental protection. . . . I think the state legislators did a wise thing by creating this law.”

Councilwoman Laurann Cook agreed.

“We owe this for our children and our children’s children--an environment in which they can live,” Cook said.

Councilman Guy Carrozzo cast the lone opposing vote, saying he promised his constituents he would not raise fees, taxes or assessments. Voting for a trash fee increase, he said, would be “a moral irresponsibility.”

“I can’t go back on my word,” he said.

The materials recovery facility is different from the curbside recycling programs many Orange County cities have adopted, in which residents must separate recyclables from their trash.

Stan Tkaczyk, Rainbow Disposal chief operating officer, said the facility “allows the resident to put out their trash without separation.”

With the method, all of the community’s waste--residential, commercial and industrial--will be taken to the facility to be sorted mechanically for recyclables, then processed manually by workers to ensure that materials are recovered.

Ron Shenkman, Rainbow Disposal marketing director, said this system guarantees “100% participation from residents and commercial users--they don’t have to separate trash into separate bins,” Shenkman said.

City Manager Ray Kromer said: “We think this is going to be the way of the future.”