College Fund-Raiser : Scavengers Beat Recycling Team to the Pickup

Woodland Hills homeowners who have launched a private recycling project to raise money for Pierce College are finding unexpected competition for their curbside trash.

The competition has come from thieves, who have outraced recyclers and taken tons of paper and other reusable rubbish, project organizers said Monday.

Recyclable metal, plastic and paper--collected during regular pickups sponsored by the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization--are worth $45 a ton to the Foundation for Pierce College.

In one case of scavenging, “700 pounds of newspapers were taken from a woman’s house in the Carlton Terrace area before we got there on Saturday,” said Robert Gross, a homeowner group vice president.

“We got a call an hour and a half before the pickups began from a woman in another area. She said a guy in a new camper was picking up her stuff even as she came out with more.”

Gross said he stopped one scavenger from removing bundles of old newspapers from the front of a neighbor’s home.

The incidents have prompted the association to order special identification banners for trucks used by its contractor, Sylmar-based Community Recycling Center.

The company also is buying T-shirts for employees to wear during future Woodland Hills pickups, said Danny Peterson, general manager of Community Recycling.

“We anticipated this. There are hundreds of scavengers who drive around the Valley and pick up cardboard and stuff and sell it to places like ours,” Peterson said Monday.

Nonetheless, about 15 tons of recyclable materials were collected Saturday during the second weekend of the residents’ pickup program, project organizers said.

That is about twice the amount collected last month during the first pickup, which raised $729 for the college. The latest check will be turned over to college Pbesident David Wolf at a homeowner organization meeting Thursday night, Gross said.

About 25% of the 2,000 homes in last weekend’s pickup area participated in the recycling, he said.

The program--the San Fernando Valley’s first independent curbside pickup project, Peterson said--is expected to expand gradually until it covers most of Woodland Hills once a month. The next pickup April 2 will involve a 3,000-house area bounded by the Ventura Freeway, Hidden Hills, Victory Boulevard and Fallbrook Avenue, Gross said.