Recycle Bin Scavengers in the City of Gardena

I'm shocked someone is stealing from your recycling! Do you have a garage you can put your recycling in until morning? My family personally puts the recycling in the garage and only takes it out the morning of pick-up.

You have way to much time on your hands. You are lucky to be able to afford to eat and drink enough to fill a recycle bin. What I do is fill a bag insted of my bin, and hand it to the person recycling, because they could be breaking into your house for food money instead of working for it. With all of the crazy things going on in the world,worrying about someone trying to get by seems very trivial.

Above all, giving it to the city so they can perpetuate sweetheart deals and corruption is not the answer. Make someone who is less fortunates day and stop trippin. If more people cared a little more about others, the world would be a better place.

I suggest highly that you come at this from another direction such as having the police enforce illegal shopping cart ownership- when a person takes a shopping cart from the store to carry their purchases and does not contact the service to pick it up they leave a transport vehicle for trash theives. homeless using shopping carts as luggage are commiting a crime- invest in a motion detecting spot light outside your home that will deter people from coming on your property and lower your home insurance rates. Call the dept and find out when you see someone with a shopping cart off of store property can you make a citizens' arrest and call them. That's as much as i can give you, and i know it puts responsibility on you--but we need to do something! every morning on the recycling day i have to dodge someone at o-dark 30' digging in the trash with their cart in the traffic way.

These poor folks are feeding their families and saving the trash truck employees the pain of collecting the stuff. The refuse companies lose money on recycling whether or not the trash gets picked through by these guys. The cities' only interest is in maintaining a state mandated recycling program with associated grants, not in turning it into a for-profit project.The refuse companies make their money back in the fees they charge property owners for the regular refuse pick-up. Win-Win-Win for those involved....except for the well intended residents who take time and effort separating their trash, feeling it their civic duty......Best alternative? Recycle the aluminum (most profitable) yourself and donate the cash to your favorite charity.  

I agree with Anthony and Mom2my3girlz. First Anthony is  right to let these people make a living taking something we're throwing away anyway. How many times have we been harassed outside a small store or market by someone just begging for $ or worse by thieves who want to take your hard earned possesions off your hands. On the other side is the fact I would be greatly offended by someone coming onto my property to remove the recyclable items without permission. i would not put my items in the can but would put the can out with a note letting them know what they did greatly offended me . I would store the items for a short while before putting them back on the street. maybe this would ween them from entering the property.

I live in Gardena and have the same problem so I no longer recycle. One thing none of you have thought of is identity theft , how do you keep identity theifs from going through you trash? I personally shred everything , but when your identity is stolen just think of it as someone who needs to eat needs it more