L.A. OKs Police Crackdown on Thefts of Recyclables

Despite opposition from three council members, the City Council voted Tuesday to implement a citywide police patrol program to target thieves who pilfer newspapers and other recyclables from residential curbside recycling bins.

The program will be modeled after a six-month pilot program recently completed in the west San Fernando Valley and credited with saving the city thousands of dollars in recycling revenue.

The council voted 10 to 3 to use $600,000 in state grants and revenue from the city recycling program to pay police and reserve officers to work overtime, patrolling at night and early in the morning for recycling scavengers.

But council members Mike Hernandez, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters objected to the program. Hernandez said police should concentrate on more serious crimes instead of arresting people who are “just trying to make a few dollars.”

Councilwomen Laura Chick and Ruth Galanter, among others, said scavenging generates dozens of complaints weekly and drains the city of about $2 million in annual revenue from the city’s curbside recycling program.

They noted that the program will not take police away from regular patrols but will pay them to work overtime. They also said that the police will target organized scavengers who work regular hours and cart away tons of recyclables in trucks and vans. It will not arrest the homeless or people who are collecting newspapers in shopping carts, they said.

Stealing from the recycling bins is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 and six months in jail.

“Everybody is sympathetic to the guy with the shopping cart, but it’s the guy with the truck who is making all the real money,” Galanter said.

In March, 1994, the city collected more than 4,500 tons of newspapers from the 720,000 residents participating in the recycling program. That amount has declined to just over 1,500 tons a month in August, a drop city recycling officials attribute mostly to scavengers.

Chick, who helped spearhead the pilot program in the West Valley, said she fears many residents participating in the recycling program may stop taking part if the city does not take action against scavengers.

The increased scavenging was fueled by a huge jump in the price of newsprint. In contrast to two or three years ago when municipalities had to pay waste-disposal companies to haul away old newspapers, recycling firms now pay up to $100 a ton.