The Body Politic : Battle of the Bins

Recycling seemed so easy, so anxiety-free. Residents would stash their bottles, cans and paper in city-provided bins. The cities would take the contents and send them off to be recycled. Everyone was supposed to feel good.

Everyone doesn’t. The programs, implemented after the state ordered cities to cut back the junk they sent to landfills, are reducing the trash flow but they are also adding to Southern Californians’ Angst. Scavengers’ pre-dawn sorties are upsetting the rubbish cart.

Cities, which face heavy fines if they don’t meet state goals, worry that people seeking to thwart scavengers will return to their un-green ways and put recyclables in the regular trash.

Many residents see scavengers as intruders, scary ones. “What’s to stop them from taking something from my garage or my yard?” asks one homeowner. Marilyn McGuire, an L.A. refuse official, has cited worries that scavengers “may be casing their places to come back later and burglarize.”

Cities, trying to crack down on organized bands of scavengers, are asking residents to report them. Los Angeles, which has recycling programs in more than 80% of the city, gets about 300 calls a month. Penalties go as high as $1,000 and six months in jail. Police have issued citations, but no one has yet done time for bin pilferage.

But not all the calls are about bin gangs. What to do about a family looking for a few bucks for a meal? “It’s a very touchy issue. No one’s been able to solve it,” says Lisa Constande, environmental conservation manager for Palm Desert. “It pulls at your heartstrings to see a person with their kids taking the aluminum and glass.”

Joe Delaney, solid waste supervisor for Beverly Hills, says city officials have a responsibility to the taxpayers and must “keep conscience in check” about scavengers. “They are homeless and they are poor but maybe what they’re doing isn’t best for everybody.”

Constande notes that scavengers must turn their booty in at a recycling center, so “it’s still getting recycled. That’s my only solace in all this.”

In Beverly Hills, by the way, only about 50% of the scavengers are homeless or poor, says Delaney. No word on how many of the rest are tabloid reporters.