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    ChrisMSFHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:28pm

    In SF the recycling is handled by a company called Recology. They make money from the value of the recycling, but there’s a minimum amount of required service in the city deal. And that’s why scavenging is illegal: it creates a double-whammy where scavengers are paid out for cans and bottles while the city also has to pay Recology for the lack of items they’re able to redeem: if Recology got everything the contract would be net-no-cost to the city. So, in this town at least, scavengers are absolutely stealing from the taxpayers.

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      humanSuitcaseChrisMSF
      3/21/16 2:34pm

      Is there any consideration about hiring the hobos to do this work?

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      Ned FreyChrisMSF
      3/21/16 2:37pm

      That is not a good justification at all. When people properly redeem their cans and bottles, rather than throwing them in the trash, doesn’t that create the same “double whammy” you describe? The original purchaser gets paid for the cans and bottles they redeem — and the city must pay “recology” for the “lack” of those cans or bottles that the original purchaser redeemed instead of discarding in the trash.

      The end result is exactly the same, whether the original purchase redeems the bottles and cans, or somebody picks them out of my trash and redeems them.

      So if, as you claim, “scavenging” should be illegal for the reasons you described, it stands to reason that anyone redeeming any cans and bottles should be illegal for those same reasons — no?

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    helpmeithinkimfallinginloveagainHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:25pm

    the can collectors are ‘disrupting’ the recycling system!

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      butcherbakertoiletrymakerhelpmeithinkimfallinginloveagain
      3/21/16 2:27pm

      These guys need to talk to a VC about a few billion dollars in seed money for their disruptive idea.

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      Poodletimehelpmeithinkimfallinginloveagain
      3/21/16 2:28pm

      Sick burn, dude! I wonder if this is also happening in San Francisco....

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    OneHeadLightHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:30pm

    I’m pretty sure NYC has laws about scavenging recyclables already, which is aimed at those taking bulk metal, etc. But to enforce it this way is wrong, meanspirited and just absurd. The homeless and poor make easy targets, unfortunately.

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      The Original SunshineOneHeadLight
      3/21/16 2:43pm

      I know that they do a lot of the cleanup of the Rockaway beaches during the summer. Every night the garbage cans are overflowing and entire beach looks like my cats litter box, and these guys come in and clear half of it out.

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      PeeEssAyThe Original Sunshine
      3/21/16 2:50pm

      The homeless in my neighborhood always liked to rip open people's trash bags and spread garbage on the ground while they looked for cans.

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    SlickWillieHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:44pm

    I was front page in the news when I was 11 for collecting cans because no one was really doing it back then, and I was banking like $80 every couple of weeks and buying collectible stuff with the money. I didn’t even have to do all the collecting, my grandparents and aunts/uncles would save theirs for me and I would just go over once a week and take them off their hands.

    Anyway, after the article people would send me tons of random shit from their collectable hobby of choice and I did a radio interview where the guy would ask me questions and I would just shrug my shoulders and not say shit so then my mom just took the microphone and did my interview while I sat there silently

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      Mr.Spaghetti! The Gentildouche YearsSlickWillie
      3/21/16 4:24pm

      By collectible stuff, do you mean Pokemon cards?

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      SlickWillieMr.Spaghetti! The Gentildouche Years
      3/21/16 4:37pm

      This was well before Pokemon cards were a thing. I collected old comics, old baseball cards, old coins. Mostly stuff that was already old and maybe valuable

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    BilldaCat10Hamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:23pm

    Gawker editors taking an interest in other sources of revenue.

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      stevebnycBilldaCat10
      3/21/16 2:26pm

      That is a sick burn Denton. Lolol

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    DisMyBurnerBaeHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:54pm

    Ban cans.

    There is no other solution, come to California and see for yourself. Illegally modified pick up trucks hauling “recycling” from one part of the bay area to the other, dropping shit all over the highway, causing accidents and such.

    Double dipping on the cost to the counties, (pay fo recycling program, AND have the actual goods taken by off-market, unregulated, illegally modified trucks. AKA some rando w/ a truck and some buddies...)

    It fucking sucks, unless you have a truck, you aint’ making any money on cans. And if you DO HAVE A TRUCK? YOU DON’t NEED THE FUCKING CANS

    All the money is going to illegal, ‘black market’ operators. Like mafia-lite type nonsense

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      Rihanna is the one trueDisMyBurnerBae
      3/21/16 8:44pm

      I have lived in CA my whole life and haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.

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      DisMyBurnerBaeRihanna is the one true
      3/22/16 11:05am

      ok

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    Quasar FunkHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:27pm

    They should just arrest these homeless can stealers and throw them in jail. Then the city would have the money from the cans, which I’m sure is worth far more than the expense of arrest, imprisonment, and the judicial process.

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      istariQuasar Funk
      3/21/16 2:30pm

      Also, they could then send all those arrested can collectors out to collect cans on behalf of the city! Wins all around, right?!

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      Quasar Funkistari
      3/21/16 2:32pm

      You, my friend, have a future in politics!

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    FauxhemianRhapshodyHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:27pm

    I’ve argued for a long time that the Can Mans need some sort of mafia or organized labor unit to at least regulate the territory. I say this as someone who witnessed a fight between two Can Mans a while ago over the spoils of 4th of July recycling bins. Our previous, regular Can Man, who used to ride a 10 speed with no hands while carrying multiple trash bags filled with cans, making all kinds of ruckus at 3 am, was getting hollered at from the newer Can Man, who was driving a broke down, tan colored S-10. It never came to blows, but it almost did. That was a few Can Mans ago, but it seems to be a pretty cutthroat kind of thing. I really miss that bike Can Man, though.

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      Engineer_I_amFauxhemianRhapshody
      3/21/16 2:56pm

      The regular can lady in my ‘hood took a giant dump in my driveway because someone took “her” cans.

      Unfortunately, I had it all on CCTV.

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      FauxhemianRhapshodyEngineer_I_am
      3/21/16 3:12pm

      That sounds pretty terrible. Really terrible, in fact.

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    tito_swinefluHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:39pm

    When I was 12, I really wanted to buy my first computer. I went to the local university daily to fish aluminum cans out of the garbage. It was a party school, so there were a lot of cans. I’d take them down to the weird guy at the recycling center who made little biplanes out of coke cans. I made nearly a dollar each day. Eventually I made the 100 dollars I needed to buy a cheapo computer with 16k of ram.

    The college students would laugh at me and occasionally throw me in the trash cans I was going through. The joke’s on them though, because their communication degrees are useless, while I took the lessons I learned and started a lucrative career as a drug dealer.

    So you never know, those urchins going through the garbage might someday become contributing members of society.

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      madeanaccountjustforsuikodentito_swineflu
      3/21/16 6:03pm

      They threw a 12 year old into trash cans? Goddamn people are fucked up.

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    Ned FreyHamilton Nolan
    3/21/16 2:29pm

    “Recycling theft does impact the city’s ability to track our curbside diversion rate,”

    “Recycling theft”?

    The fact that they’ve described the practice picking recyclable cans out of garbage as “theft” tells you all you need to know.

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