Santa Ana locks its trash cans against the homeless

[Liberal_in_LA]

Santa Ana neighborhood locks up trash to thwart scavengers


Paula Faccou of Santa Ana has had enough of foragers going through her trash looking for things to sell. “I pay for trash service. I should decide where it goes,” she says.

Residents are putting their recyclables into containers designed to withstand the brute strength of bears.
By Tony Barboza
June 16, 2009

They didn't hold up to the bears of Alaska, but they just might be enough to discourage the scavengers of Santa Ana.

Fed up with urban foragers who root through neighborhood trash in search of plastic and aluminum, residents of one Santa Ana neighborhood are locking up their recyclables in a container designed to withstand the brute strength and cunning of brown and black bears.

So it is that Paula Faccou now keeps a key -- right on the same chain with her house key -- to lock up her trash. And when the hauler drives down the street and upends the cart over his truck with an automated arm, the gravity-driven lock pops open.

Now there's hope on Van Ness Avenue that the bear bins will drive off people like the man Faccou nearly bumped into on her driveway one day as she was carrying in groceries.

"It just scared the living heck out of me," said the 67-year-old retiree. "A complete stranger, standing outside. It was very brazen, and that's pushing it too much. They have told me, 'What's your problem, lady? It's just trash,' but I pay for trash service. . . . I should decide where it goes."

City officials said they've seen a recent uptick in complaints about scavengers prowling the night before trash day, when bins are full of bottles and cans.

"It was pretty much a given that the economy was driving the increase in scavenging," said Mary Gonzales, the city's project manager, who is overseeing the program.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-outthere16-2009jun16%2C0%2C2611118.story

[Joe the Revelator]

1. The lady is silly, but I agree to a point

I don't want random people going through my stuff. First of all random people on my property isn't cool by me. Second of all there are some things that I throw away that I don't want people to get their hands on (personal papers etc)

[madaboutharry]

4. I think I agree with you. I would not want

someone in my driveway going through my trash.

There are other ways to be helpful to the homeless.

[arcadian]

21. Once it's out on the curb it's no longer yours.

[Joe the Revelator]

23. So you're cool with identity theft, right?

If I accidentally throw something away with my S/S number on it, then I'm fair game.

[BadgerKid]

24. Get a paper shredder :-) n/t

[Joe the Revelator]

26. Granted, but if I forget to shred one random cc offer, I should be able to lock my garbage

or at the very least not come home to some random person rooting around in it.

[arcadian]

29. Well, I am Nigerian. Kind of goes along with the territory.

[ixion]

2. "brazen?" or desperate?

I'd say the latter, Ms. Faccou. Perhaps you should look behind your fear for just one moment to think about that.

[sandnsea]

3. I save my cans for a homeless guy

Seems stupid to pay to have stuff carted off when you can give it to somebody else to get a couple of bucks from. Sort it ahead of time and they won't be in your garbage.

Oh yeah. That would be taking 2 minutes of your time to give a lazy loser something for nothing.

People. Argh.

[Forkboy]

9. Same here.

There was guy who went up our street and he tore open every trash bag as he went. I confronted him one day and just told him that if he would stop tearing the my bags open I would put any cans/bottles I use that week in a separate bag for him. He was incredibly grateful just for a small gesture like that. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any sign of him in a couple of months now, and I'm worried about him.

[sandnsea]

14. Mine knocked on the door

"Do you have any cans I can take away for you?"

Oregon has the bottle bill, a nickel for various drinking containers. It's just as easy for me to give them to this guy a couple times a month as it is to haul them around myself.

I have to admit I do yell at the tweakers though. Luckily they don't seem to be in this neighborhood anymore. They don't go through garbage anyway. They just steal stuff. Too good to go through garbage, lol.

[Joanne98]

5. selfish

[sarcasmo]

7. Selfish, scared and uninformed.

[Iggo]

6. Dumppster diving for recyclables is honest work.

[DefenseLawyer]

8. Southern Indiana needs to lock its trash cans against its lawyers

http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/indiana/S_Indiana_lawyer_found_asleep_in_trash_can_20090619

Hate to kick a guy when he's down, but hey, buy the ticket, take the ride.

[handmade34]

18. so funny - so sad

[Zoigal]

10. Always put our cans in a special bag on top of the other

recycle stuff. No problems so far. Folks just pull out the cans and amble on.....z

[Initech]

11. God I hate my city sometimes.

Seriously - why lock out dumpster divers? It's trash. Better someone else gets it than let it sit in a fucking landfill. This is one of the stupidest things we've ever done. :banghead:

[Journeyman]

20. These are recyclables. Won't sit in a landfill. It's all reclaimed by the disposal company. . .

who use the profits to to keep down the cost of your disposal rates.

But hey, all it does is keep your neighborhood clean and save you money.

If that's what passes for "one of the stupidest things" your city's ever done, I can't see how you have much to complain about.

[Initech]

22. It's not about that at all.

Like I said - why lock out the dumpster divers? They need to make a buck too. It's not about keeping the city clean - I'm all for that. But putting locks on your fucking trash cans just screams arrogance.

[Journeyman]

25. It is ALL about protecting a disposal company's recyclables profit. . .

and when the disposal company loses that money, they charge YOU more for picking up your trash.

Keeping your neighborhood from looking like the county dump is only a side benefit.

These citizens may put their trash in locked carts, but ultimately, their actions only reinforce the laws in place to protect Waste Management's corporate interests. Check your city's regulations. You'll find dumpster diving -- and the theft of all sorts of recyclable materials -- is quite illegal.

(You really need to learn the mechanics of your city's operations.)

[Joe the Revelator]

27. or a desire for privacy and not having random people on your property throwing trash on the ground

[dweller]

12. "I should decide where it goes."

uh, you already did. you decided to throw it away from you.

one man's trash is another man's treasure,
dp

[Gormy Cuss]

13. Ms. Faccou: it ceases to be yours once it's out for pickup.

Your municipality may have a beef however because they count on the value of recycles in those bins.
It's a sad state of affairs that so many scavengers are roaming the streets looking for returnables. It's a hard way to make a little money.

[Wiley50]

15. I was a member of a Rainbow Family Clan in 1975 when Compactors suddenly appeared

I first saw them on a Safeway in Oakland

[TheMadMonk]

16. gravity driven locks? Look forward to piles of rubbish on the kerb. nt

[tularetom]

17. We've had problems with a guy in a pickup taking aluminum from our recyclable can

The cost the county gets for selling the aluminum helps keep the rates low so if somebody steals enough of the cans the rates will go up.

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that he roots through the trash cans to get to the aluminum and just throws the stuff on the ground. So now there's a big mess there for the property owner to clean up. Sometimes he doesn't confine his browsing to the recyclable can he roots through the garbage can as well. We live in a rural area so if there is food waste dumped on the ground it attracts all sorts of unwanted guests like raccoons.

If chased him away several times. I've heard that several homeowners have confronted him with shotguns. The sheriff's department is worthless. This apparently doesn't rise to the level of a crime on their radar screen even though it is a violation of the county code. They don't enforce it.

What can you do? I used to take my cans down to the road the night before collection day. Not anymore. Now I get up at 4 or 5 and take them down. The garbage truck comes by about 7. This narrows the window available to the scroungers.

Somebody's going to wind up injured or dead someday as a result of this kind of thing. I'm in total agreement with the people who lock their cans.

[DarthDem]

19. Kind of a Misleading Headline

I thought this was going to be a story about Santa Ana, the municipality, locking trash cans in public places, and I wasn't sure how I would feel about that.

However, I can understand these residents' concerns - - about trespassing, even privacy. Just a sad story with a very complicated resolution, if any.

[SoCalDem]

28. Around here, people toss stuff all over parking lots

looking for things in dumpsters. A friend of mine had to hire security for their dumspters. The trash pick up people will not pick up trash at dumpsters that are overflowing or that have trash scattered around them.
he pays for the service and for the dumpsters, and people bring their own trash to his dumpsters, and then the wanderers show up and toss things all over the place.