SEAL BEACH : Trash Scavengers Feeling the Heat

The last orange traces of the sun vanished beneath the Pacific and garbage cans of different shapes, colors and sizes lined the meandering streets.

It’s the night before trash collection--and time for Jay Diamond to hit the streets.

As one of the city’s dozen or so can and bottle scavengers, Diamond earns spare change from what some of his more fortunate neighbors discard as worthless.

He’s lived in Seal Beach about six months, for a while in a friend’s apartment, other times on the street, sleeping on the bare concrete slab of a burned-out building.

Diamond and his fellow scavengers said they’d prefer to go about their business in private. But in recent weeks, they’ve been thrust into the center of simmering public debate over the behavior of homeless people who aggressively panhandle and expose themselves around the recycling center where Diamond and others redeem their containers for cash.

For the scavengers, the source of all discontent is three homeless men. But the situation now threatens their livelihoods, forcing them to contemplate a future without the income they’ve come to rely on to buy food and other essentials.

“These people are doing nothing but trying to stay alive,” said Diamond, pointing to fellow scavenger Richard Ortiz at the recycling center in front of a Pavilions market on Pacific Coast Highway.

“We don’t bother anyone. We don’t want any trouble,” Ortiz added.

Their daily foraging through trash cans and dumpsters is technically illegal. Because police usually take action only if they catch a scavenger in the act, few arrests are made--a fact Diamond and his friends credit to their skills.

Most residents seem concerned primarily with the panhandlers’ behavior. But Seal Beach Mayor Gwen Forsythe and other residents went further, criticizing the scavengers themselves for riffling through trash cans and walking off with private--albeit discarded--property.

It’s unclear how widespread can-hunting is, largely because the scavengers refuse to discuss how much they earn for fear of being robbed. “I don’t carry a bank account; I carry cash,” Diamond said.

Several did say that a good day could bring several hundred cans and bottles, which are redeemed for 2 1/2 to 5 cents each. Scavenging is most common in the alleys behind the city’s business strips and around the apartment buildings and small homes of nearby Old Town, according to Seal Beach Police Sgt. Dean Zanone.

The scavengers themselves remain something of a mystery because they mostly work at night, when the cloak of darkness conceals their actions. Diamond’s “work” clothes consist of worn jeans, a black cowboy hat and a light denim vest over a bare chest adorned by several tattoos. His equipment includes a flashlight and an aging 10-speed bike attached to a bright orange trailer able to carry 400 pounds of glass.

The key to the job is being neat, street-smart and quiet, Diamond and others said. It’s physical work requiring keen judgment about which streets to hit and when to call it quits. A given night might require dealing with a barking dog or hiding from a passing police cruiser, Diamond said.

The scavengers might be hurt by a plan now being discussed by the city that would encourage residents to take their recyclables to the city works yard.

That’s a prospect that doesn’t sit well with most scavengers, who have incorporated their rounds into a daily routine. “I need to work. I need to eat,” said scavenger Hector Plata.