Letters: Cash for cans in California

Re “Recycling fraud costs state millions,” Oct. 7

At my local recycling center, a man said to me that he made roughly $25 every few days from recycling aluminum cans. “Tax free!,” he proclaimed. He was not a rich man, nor did it seem likely that he had a job or a home.

You get 5 cents for each can. This redemption value is the very reason that my own recycle bin at home, the blue trash can, is scoured every Sunday night. If recycling cans can help those in need and the environment, then why make the process any harder?

Instead of making recycling more difficult, perhaps the state can instead require every can sold in California to carry some kind of identification that could be scanned at the recycling centers.

Darren Duque

Los Angeles

Recycling redemption should be a federal program. Vastly more cans and bottles would be recycled nationwide, reducing waste going in to landfills, and would-be fraudsters who truck loads of cans across state lines for their redemption value would be out of luck.

Short of that, California could increase its budget to prevent this kind of fraud. I bet we could see a significant payback on that investment.

Joseph DeMello

Long Beach

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