apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I the city I used to live in the municipality wanted to 'crack down' on the stealing of recyclables. find it ironic when the city gets upset about the garbage they can make money off of, but can't be bothered feeding the homeless

When I moved to a more urban neighborhood in NE Portland (ie a greater mix of apartments, single-family homes and light commercial), I discovered that my neighborhood also was more aggressively frequented by "the shopping cart people." I discovered this at about 4 a.m. on the first really hot day of the year, when I had gone to bed with my window open and awoke to the noise of someone digging through the recycle bin directly under my window. Rational thought doesn't immediately kick in when you are awakened by what also can sound like someone breaking into your bedroom, and I was terrified! (In my old neighborhood, can and bottle collectors dug through the bins once they were put by the curb on garbage/recycling day, but they didn't go in the back yard to scavenge.)

Since then, I've learned to keep my recycling bins away from my bedroom window, and if I have returnables, I separate these into a separate bin/bag to make it easier for the collectors to find without making a mess, making lots of noise or cutting themselves on can lids.

Now that I know how to avoid getting startled while I sleep, I'm fine with people helping themselves to my returnables. In fact, after a party, I find it handy to be able to put them out early, knowing that someone will take them and free up space in my recycle bins. (We have enough pedestrian traffic in my neighborhood and apartment buildings on different recycling schedules that someone seems to come by every day.)

hollie - good point. i'm not 100% decided on this issue. there are many people who are not homeless or jobless as the article points out who do load up trucks with recyclables for some extra cash. i'm not about to begrudge a hard-working person with a family to support some extra cash, especially in this economy, so i don't feel strongly about that. but on the other hand, in some cities the value of the recyclables does support the recycling programs and other programs that i would hate to see fail. if a city is really concerned they should look into locking bins or enforcing the law better (yeah right). i think this bill might put the pressure on the wrong people (recycling facilities).

bohemiangirl - i bet your method of using a separate bag gets around the illegality of taking returnables. they only become the property of the waste hauler when they are placed in their bins. so that's one way to do it.

I obviously can't speak for all San Franciscans, but I have not had a problem with people rooting through our cans. That said, I have seen quite a few cardboard scavengers in the Castro and also in West Portal - packing their trucks to the rim with collapsed boxes. In these cases, they are clearly taking care of the surplus that can't fit into the already full recycle bins.

I think that there should be some distinction made between the organized and respectful scavengers who are providing a service (clearing sidewalks of surplus recyclables that would otherwise sit out) and the violent nuisance scavengers who loudly rustle through residential cans in the wee hours, leaving trash in their wake.

That said, for many years I lived in another large metropolitan area with an abysmal joke of a recycling program. The lack of segregated cans (we threw recyclables out with regular trash, but used a different colored bag) did not prevent scavengers. As long as some types of garbage can be traded for cash, you'll always have scavengers.

I agree with Laila, there should be a nice mix of carboard scavengers and garbage raiders. I live in SoMA and our garbage gets hit so hard, we always have a huge mess on our street from raiders. Unfortunately it keeps the respectable ones out. We couldnt even get one of the trucks full of cardboard to come get our surplus of IKEA boxes. So sad, I love the efficiency of those carboard truckers.