Crackdown on Scavenger Squads Proposed : Trash: Effort is aimed at organized groups that raid recycling bins in residential areas. Council will be asked to approve a complaint hot line.

Los Angeles city officials have proposed a crackdown on the organized scavengers who traverse the city, plucking cans and bottles from recycling bins.

Officials want to hire a three-member team to staff a special scavenging hot line and investigate the hundreds of complaints that come into City Hall every month. The Board of Public Works approved the plan Friday, sending it to the City Council.

The city’s effort will focus on “well-organized, systematic scavengers” who move across the city in teams, officials say, and not the poor people working to make a buck.

“We’re not going to chase the person pushing the pushcart down the street, throw them to the ground and take their materials away from them,” said Marilyn McGuire, the city’s refuse collection manager. “We’re certainly not interested in doing that.”

Charles Dickerson, president of the Board of Public Works, agreed that the effort should concentrate on major scavengers--who use trucks and crews of laborers--and not the homeless.

“I live in an area where there are a lot of people who cannot live unless they go through my trash,” said Dickerson, who lives in the Crenshaw district. “They go through my trash and they turn it into money for themselves, and frankly, I don’t have a problem with that. . . . It is clearly people who are homeless who are doing this in my neighborhood.”

The revenue that the city loses from the scavengers is not what prompted the crackdown. Although officials do not have any specific figures, that loss is considered relatively minor.

The real fear is that the many residents upset by scavenging will give up recycling in frustration, officials said. State law requires all cities to reduce their trash flow 25% by next year and 50% by 2000 to conserve landfill space. Municipalities that do not meet the goals could face hefty fines.

As it is now, Los Angeles recovers 300 to 400 tons of recyclables a week in a program that spans 83% of the city. The Westside will be the next area to receive the city’s yellow bins. By the time the program goes citywide, Los Angeles will have purchased about 200 special recycling trucks at $70,000 apiece, and more than 700,000 recycling bins for about $3.50 each.

“Our greatest area of concern is that residents will stop participating in the program,” McGuire said. “The majority of the residents seem to feel that the scavengers are coming into their neighborhood creating messes, making noise, that they’re undesirable, that they may be casing their places to come back later and burglarize.”

Scavenging is an issue that a host of Southland cities are grappling with through police enforcement, public information campaigns and warning letters.

Los Angeles received 1,822 calls from homeowners angry about scavenging during the 20 months ending in June, 1994. That has grown recently to 300 calls a month, making scavenging one of the city’s hot issues.

Residents have filed many complaints over the years involving scavenging, but officials could not recall any arrests.

“In the past it has been transients rummaging through recycling bins,” said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. “Now, we are getting reports of more organized entrepreneurial efforts at a level like we have not seen in the past.”

Dickerson questioned whether such a program would divert police resources away from higher-priority cases. But the sanitation officials pushing the plan say the special team would conduct investigations of major violators and only involve the police later when the violation was clear-cut.