Weighty Issue with the Trash

I still hear the occasional report about people pilfering recyclables during the night before pick-up.  We blogged about it a year ago here.

On December 11th in B'game, RethinkWaste says it will begin the research to build a "Home Diversion Calculator tool" that will be promoted and used to encourage diversion by providing residential customers the opportunity to accurately calculate their home diversion rate. This will then lead to other promotional opportunities such as highlighting resident's efforts and rewarding high diversion achievers. They

will be conducting a research project to weigh residential carts for approximately 25% of one residential route each day in one Member Agency. We hope to get data for 200 or so households from a Member Agency each day we do this research. We will simply be measuring the weight of all three carts set-out for collection and making note of how full each cart is. (We will not be going through the contents.) However, all 800-900 homes on these routes will be receiving the following robotic phone call ("robo call") from Recology early in the week:

"Hello, this is Recology San Mateo County, your recycling and garbage service provider. In conjunction with Rethink Waste and the Cart Smart program, a one-day research project to weigh carts and observe how full they are is being conducted.  This call  is to notify you that your carts may be picked up at a different time than normal for this week only.   Rest assured that the representatives from RethinkWaste will not be going through the items in the carts, but may open the lids to see how full they are."

We love diversions, so we look forward to finding out who are the biggest diverters in town!  In the meantime, no need to call BPD if someone is peeking in your cans the week after next.

Comments

[Holyroller]

What if the people who take your "recyclabe" trash wanted your left over food? They were hungry?

These people are not going through your garbage to make a living..
It is for food, a place to live out of the elements.
I think the issue that causes complaints in Burlingame is that 99%of the people "stealing garbage" are Mexican or Asian..
Would you call the Burlingame Police Dept if you saw Mexican drinking water out of your front yard hose?
Sad but True..
The City of Burlingame Police force would probably need to contact SWAT, Homeland Security too.

[Anne]

What a bunch of drivel. There are several places right here in Burlingame and many more around the other cities where one can get food. The scavengers are not looking for food. They are taking the cans. You can see shopping carts full of crushed cans come to the depots. This is business for some.

[recycler]

If they have the weight and the volume they can get the garbage density from that. Then we would know who is the densest :-)

[Holyroller]

With the exception of the last comment, I think this is an important issue.
The City of Burlingame pays X amount of dollars to a contractor to collect garbage.
We are asked to separate solids.
The solids are collected.
Then what?
If money from the public is being used "for anything" it should be public information.

What do we pay for(the small print), and what happens to the profit from the "solids" collected?
My point, Anne, is that there is a profit to be made in garbage collection and solids. The City of Burlingame Elders should consider incorporating this as a Civil Service.

[Holyroller]

Comments..
Anne?
Merry Christmas too.

[Holyroller]

I understand the need to have those "Pop Quiz" interpretations of abstact words in order to post a comment on this site. Sort of.
However, I was wondering what the web master thinks of when going through TSA strip search on the way to Los Angles.
Shoes, belt, wallet,coins, jewerly, jacket, hip surgery,eye glasses,hearing aids,water bottle,carry on luggage, laptop,ipod-esq,and most recently, Tattooes.
Would it be possible to make this "security process" at Burlingame Voice little more simple?
Just asking.

[Anne]

Med check, Holy.

[Joe]

Holyroller...the Voice runs on a standard platform that hosts thousands of blogs around the world. We aren't able to customize much more than you see now. If anything, the "security" will get tighter so that the damn spammers have to work harder.

[Holyroller]

Thanks Joe.
Merry Christmas, Hanukkha, Quanza, and Festivise one and all.
With the exception of whoever those people who love SPAM.

[pat giorni]

Can anyone answer this?
If someone leaves furniture on the street next to the garbage can, why am I not a thief if I take it home?

If someone leaves broken down cardboard boxes on the street next to the garbage can and I take them home, why am I not a thief?

If someone throws away soda cans, beer and plastic bottles, and I take them home, why are the police called to arrest me as a thief?

[hillsider]

That is a pretty good question. The difference is you are not really throwing away the cans and bottles. You are recycling them physically and financially. You paid a 5c CRV on them and they still are worth 5c. Not just to you but also to the trash hauler. That 5c subsidizes your trash rates. So when someone takes them they are stealing from the trash company.

[pat giorni]

....So if I choose to physically take my beer bottles and soda cans to a recycle center and reap the financial refund, rather than participate in subsudized garbage rates by throwing them away, am I stealing from the trash company?

[hillsider]

No you would not be stealing. For starters you paid the CRV so you can't steal from yourself. Second, the trash company would consider that a legal cost of doing business while the thieves are an illegal cost of business. Nice try tho.