The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : Yesterday’s News Is Still a Hot Item

Here come the real pulp detectives.

Faced with a loss of millions of dollars--half the money the city of Los Angeles expected to reap from collecting recyclables--police are fielding special patrols in the west San Fernando Valley to catch the thieves who have taken to stealing the latest hot commodity in the criminal world: old newspapers.

Police are searching for industrious thieves who load up pickup trucks with tons of newspapers discarded by householders in the familiar little yellow bins that were distributed by city officials some months ago.

The reason for the sudden demand: The price of waste newsprint has skyrocketed from about $15 a ton a year ago to $170 last month, tracking the rocketing rise of fresh newsprint prices.

The old newsprint can be recycled into pulp that can be used to make other paper products.

“The higher the value, the greater attraction to scavengers and the more money the city is losing,” said David Mays, a spokesman for the city’s curbside recycling program.

Indeed, the thefts translate into big losses for the city.

“We’re currently losing about $2 million a year in recyclable material due to scavengers,” Mays said. “People have made a business out of this, and they are making a good living.”

Mays said that if it weren’t for scavenging--mostly of newspapers--the city would take in an estimated $4 million annually in recyclable goods at current rates.

To combat the problem, city officials gave the LAPD’s West Valley Division $15,000 this year to pay overtime for officers to crack down on scavengers.

They’re easy to spot, Police Sgt. Joel Price says.

“When you go out around 4:30 a.m. and spot a pickup truck full of newspapers, it’s pretty easy,” Price said. “Those people are doing one of two things: They’re either delivering newspapers or stealing them.”

To date, Price said, the officers have issued 100 citations, impounded 30 vehicles and made five arrests. The amount of newspapers and other recyclables collected by sanitation workers has increased 30% since the patrols began, adding an extra $8,000 a month to city coffers.

But despite those results, the program may soon come to a halt unless the city approves more funds. Better yet, says Price, it needs to be expanded citywide.

What has happened, Price says, is that clever thieves have figured out that extra officers are on the lookout for them in the West Valley so they simply head north and steal newspapers from recycling bins in Northridge and nearby communities. The Foothill and Devonshire divisions have also assigned officers to catch the paper-nappers.

Price said he and other officers are trying to develop a plan to implement a citywide anti-scavenging program, which they hope to have completed by next month. Roughly $115,000 will be needed to expand the program.

One suggestion would be to put information about scavengers into a database that could be accessed by police computers throughout the city.

In the meantime, Mays said he is concerned that residents will simply quit participating in the city’s recycling program out of frustration that their donations are being stolen by scavengers. Residents have also voiced concerns about strangers rummaging around their neighborhoods and complaints over the noise they create in the early morning hours.

“I don’t want people to drop out of the program because of scavenging,” Mays said. “It’s still important to recycle those materials.”