The one where she said she’d never seen a can machine but could “bet” on how they worked anyway? That one?
Your point, if any? :dubious:
Exactly! Why would you be upset that someone is taking stuff from your trash (which is what your garbage cans with recyclables still are)… and getting something useful out of it? That’s what recycling is, by definition!
Whatever is on the curb as “garbage” is public domain for scavenging. If you are upset that someone is profiting from your garbage (such as getting some kind of deposit or payment for them), then don’t throw it out. If it’s not worth your bother, but it is worth someone else’s, that’s called a niche.
Very often in NYC, in fact, people leave relatively good condition furniture and other stuff on the curb on the assumption that someone will snag it who could use it. I myself have scavenged an office chair and a bookcase this way in my life (while a student) with no qualms, and have likewise left a dissassembled IKEA computer desk/hutch and a halogen lamp labeled “WORKING” that would not fit in my new apartment on the curb for urban scavengers to take (they were gone by morning). A beautiful thing if you ask me.
Robot Arm has already explained why this is a bad idea. Therefore I will give my recommendation for solving the problem. Like most of my recommendations, it involves a sharpened battle-axe and the removal of the offenders’ limbs.
But in this case **DMark **has left his cans and bottles at the curb in exchange for the service of someone picking up all of his recycleables (including those that do not have cash value) and recycling them. If the company that does the pickup doesn’t receive the expected value in scrap, they will have to charge more for pickup, either in terms of fees or taxes.
She wasn’t describing a can machine at all. She described how she recycles cans in California where they are simply weighed, without the cans ever going through a barcode scanner, or anyone even checking for the “CA refund value” notation. Doesn’t matter if the barcodes are different, because they are never read.
I wouldn’t give it a second thought. If they were rummaging through my trash, I might be concerned that they were trying to steal my identity. But a recycling bin? Nope.
I wouldn’t worry about the state of California, as mentioned the cans are marked and it’s easy enough to verify the can was bought in CA if you want to bother. I was in a similar situation when I lived in NYC, NJ cans do not have a deposit and yes, the refund machines at the supermarket would spit them right back out. I wouldn’t even bother sorting before I went to the store, I’d just bring them all down and see what the machine ate.
As for lost revenue for the town/recycling company, I get why that’s a problem but I’m not so quick to write off the trash-picker as a thieving asshole. This thread alone shows that a lot of people think that trash-picking is perfectly acceptable/another form of recycling. I guess my next question would be if the town does anything to discourage the behavior, or if it’s just something that’s quietly overlooked.
Because they leave a pile of garbage in my alley in the process and I’m tired of cleaning it up. In addition to this they make a tremendous amount of noise which starts a chain reaction of barking dogs. Therefore, I put my recycling out in the morning (along with my trash) just before the truck arrives.
However, I do take advantage of alley vultures by leaving large scrap metal out during the day. I don’t have to call the city for a separate pick it up and they get the money for their efforts.
I vote no reason for you to care. You want the stuff to be taken away, and the stuff is being taken away. Who takes it, and who they sell it to, does not affect the end result from your point of view.
Yes it does as many posters have already pointed out. My garbage disposal company makes a profit on the cans that they take which results in a lower price overall (recycling + regular trash + green waste) for disposal service. Few cans = higher costs for them = eventually higher monthly bills for me. In addition, many of the scavengers leave a mess and make noise in the middle of the night.
Not picking on you, yours was just the last post.
I live in Wisconsin and we don’t have deposits for cans here. Looking at the empties in the trashcan I see that 3 cans have markings for VT-ME-NY-IA-MA-CT 5c. One has ME VT MA NY HI IA OR CT 5c but also CA CRV MI 10c.
I could conceivably take these cans to IA or MI pretty easily and cash in for the deposit which is more than the recycleable value here in WI.
But you left your DNA on those bottles!!??!?! :eek:
Sorry, you got your !!s and your ??s in the wrong order. 
There’s a guy that lives on our street, probably in his 70s, who takes care of a bunch of grandkids while the parents work, who we occasionally see going through people’s recycling bins late at night or sometimes on the morning of pick-up day. Neighbors complain about how embarrassing it is that someone on their street is “picking through the garbage” and “bringing down the property value” but I kinda feel bad for all the responsibility he has at his age to take care of these kids, and he never says a peep or bothers anybody. So I don’t care.
People regularly put out old broken down pieces of furniture, plants, old grills, mattresses (stuff in less-than-Goodwill condition), and somebody ALWAYS comes by and picks them up. I’m totally cool with that kind of recycling. One man’s trash being another man’s solution, and all that.
That’s not true. Private recycling contracts are based on a certain return on investment. If companies or cities cannot cover the cost of recycling then the programs are at risk. My city has cut their pick-ups to every other week to save money. It is a real possibility that the program will be cancelled outright, which means almost all of the recyclable material will become landfill.
Interesting responses. I’d been thinking about starting a thread like this for awhile now–we’ve got a little old Asian lady on our street (I don’t think she speaks a word of English) who goes out in the wee hours of the morning and goes through everyone’s recycling. I caught her at it one day when she must have been late with her rounds–she was sitting in our driveway, sorting through our cans all neat-as-you-please. She didn’t even look scared or worried, just flashed me a grin and kept on what she was doing.
The way I look at it, the stuff gets taken away, she doesn’t leave a mess, and she gets to make a little money off of something I’m not going to miss. What do I care? It’s not my responsibility to be Recycling Police, and I’d prefer not to piss off my neighbors for petty things like that. If the stuff is picked up, I don’t care if it’s the recycling company, the little Asian lady, or the Recycling Elves.
yes, you’re right! the cans I just bought at Target do have that mark. I swear though, the cans I bought in NJ were not marked (I worked in Jersey, I bought a lot of soda there).
I was also thinking of a story my mom told when I was little (from the 80s). We went to Chicago every year to see relatives, one year she took the cans from the drive home into the local (Buffalo) grocery store and got the $0.05/can. Next week she goes back to the same store, they had a nice new sign up, announcing that cans returned for the deposit must have the NY mark.
Anyhow, so long as I’m posting again here’s another link, which actually confirms a lot of what’s mentioned in the OP:
Thank you, sugar and spice, for the link!
I usually read the Las Vegas Weekly - don’t know how I missed that article, but it sums up exactly what I was talking about.
I tried that last year and didn’t have much luck. The couch in question was pretty crappy and a week later no one had taken it. So I put up a sign: “$25”. It was stolen the next night. 