City Goes After Poor People “Stealing” Garbage
City officials are very concerned these days about sky rocketing crime; no, not the crimes that plague our neighborhood like shootings, muggings and break-ins – the city is busy with more important things: going after the poor chaps who scavenger recyclable garbage from the curbside. This epidemic of thievery has the city up in a tizzy because they make millions from the sale of our recyclable garbage, so they have taken to cracking down on these brazen criminals, and the New York Post is cheering them on.
From the NY Post:
City sanitation cops are following a paper trail to bust a new breed of thieves. Sly scrap bandits have taken to swiping bags of paper and cardboard left on curbs for the city’s Sanitation Department, following a dramatic rise in the value of the recyclable material, officials said.
Mixed paper has more than doubled in price over the past two years, going from around $40 a ton to as high as $120.
That huge price increase has been fueled by dwindling amounts of paper ending up in the recycling bin, as consumers switch to electronic forms of communication.
“When you approach this value, it becomes a market for unsavory characters,” said Hank Levin, whose Pratt Industries on Staten Island handles half the city’s curb-side paper pickup.
“[Thieves] can take a couple of tons off of the street in a night and get about $250.”
Cops with the city’s Department of Sanitation this year have already impounded 49 vehicles — mostly vans and small, rented moving trucks — for allegedly being used to pilfer bags of mixed paper off the streets.
That’s up from last year, when only 40 vehicles were impounded for similar crimes over 12 months.
In previous years — before the bull market for mixed paper — the number of vehicles impounded for use in stealing recyclable paper was in the single digits.
Authorities are not about to write off the rash of thefts. “The paper that should rightfully be going to our recyclers is wrongfully being stolen,” said Department of Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty.
Because the city collects so much mixed paper in mandatory recycling programs, those curb-side bags add up to millions.
“The city is losing $10 per ton in revenue for each ton of paper stolen off our streets,” said Doherty.
In fiscal year 2011, Sanitation pocketed more than $1.5 million for recyclables from Pratt Industries alone. That number could skyrocket in the coming years.
Even as tech-savvy consumers have ditched paper, the demand for recycled paper has grown.
That demand is particularly strong in other countries, where much of New York’s leftovers are sent.
Its a niche market for garbage-rifling thieves who show no signs of slowing down.
Just last Wednesday, Alphonso Porter, 19, was found cruising the trendy Meatpacking District in a Penske truck for mixed paper, cops said.
He was busted after allegedly loading a cubic yard of paper — somewhere between 35 and 80 pounds — into the truck. His seized truck was brimming with stolen paper, authorities said.
The young man got a $2,000 summons for theft of recycling, cops said.
Last week, The Post also reported on the increase in metal-recycling thefts, with trash-pickers looting curbs for items like old dishwashers.
Some 46 percent of appliances put out for recycling in 2011 were not at the curb when the city went to pick them up, apparently swiped by thieves, officials said.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
I can’t even write, I’m at loss for words of what this “government” is doing the the human race. instead of being happy the individuals are being entrepreneurial and picking up TRASH (hey, if it’s not trash they should be paying the residents for their garbage) instead they want to fine them so they will be poor and have to rely on welfare. Makes me sick, sick sick!
Milhouse
Property that has been abandoned by its owner is ownerless, and anybody has the right to take it. This is pure theft by the city.
You can have my trash!
I don’t care who takes it, as long as its gone! When input it on the curb I’m not gifting my holy trash to Bloomberg and his cronies! If it gets people working, I’d rather they have it!
antigarbage people
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo DON’T TAKE MY GARBAGE!!!!! The government can steal my money in the name of tax, i don’t mind that. But poor people messing with my garbage, thats where i put my foot down, hells no!!!
Scary world
Oh no, what are we to do now? I’m afraid to leave my garbage outside. Imagine waking up in the morning and seeing your garbage gone and not knowing who took it. Scary, whats this world coming to?
Anon
The city doesn’t recycle as much as they want citizens to believe.
“Still, city officials say that it is more expensive to recycle than to send trash to landfills and incinerators for disposal, and that they have to weigh those costs against environmental goals.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011…
I can also understand the city’s side when people are *paying* for recycling service and a thief steals from this process.
not so simple
This doesn’t seem like poor people scavenging through trash, it seems like people who can afford trucks and making a business out of recycled paper
Free to take
Maybe i’ll hang a sign by my garbage, Free for all to take!
CN
One solution might be for the City to stop making people separate the recyclables from the trash. This would make it less lucrative for the scavengers, would save everyone the tircha of sorting their refuse, would save the City from making special pickups for recyclables, and the City could just sort through everything and separate out whatever is useful after the trucks haul it all away – as is done in some other cities.
CH Anon
CN
Your idea doesn’t work. Soiled paper has little to no value for recycling. It needs to be clean. Do you really think it makes sense to have workers sift through dirty diapers mixed with paper and rotting food when citizens could be responsible for their own garbage? Recycling is not difficult to do.
Please name these other cities where your idea is practiced.
CN
To CH Anon: I can’t name all the cities that recycle this way, but one good example is Lincoln, CA. All the garbage and recyclables combined goes directly to a materials recovery facility where it is sorted. You can visit http://www.onebigbin.com for more information and a video presentation.