13 ms·

Cardboard theft

86 points by sohkamyung 6y ago

jbdigriz 6y ago
I definitely learned something intriguing today - thanks for sharing!
bynormous 6y ago
Is it theft if the people and companies throwing it out don't care? I would assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's actually picked up?
- 13of40 6y ago
  On the one hand, it doesn't seem right for the government to use this as a moneymaking opportunity at the expense of other "entrepreneurs" but on the other hand the official pipeline probably adheres to some standards they wouldn't, like not dumping it in the woods if it can't be sold.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    > like not dumping it in the woods if it can't be sold. I'd imagine that's not as big of a problem as it may sound since the criminals wouldn't want to lose money like that. That being said if the criminals are getting to the recycling first they're technically providing better (faster) service.
    - 13of40 6y ago
      Like any other industry, I assume the value of these things ebbs and flows. If you look at recycling in the US when China decided not to accept our waste, I bet a lot of companies found themselves stuck with tons of material that suddenly had negative value. It's easier to imagine a government agency doing the right thing in that situation than a criminal enterprise.
      - chrischen 6y ago
        That's an isolated incident. I don't think the cardboard they've been collecting all this time regularly will have day to day shifts in values that cause them to randomly discard some in the forest.
        danans 6y ago
        A lot of cardboard has no recycling value because it is contaminated with other materials. For example, used pizza boxes soaked with grease are not recyclable. If you're lucky and your city has a municipal composting program, they can be composted, or some places incinerate stuff like this for energy, but otherwise they end up in the trash, or worse, discarded in the forest. That doesn't stop people from throwing them in the recycling bin though.
  - arrosenberg 6y ago
    The government doing it means that a previous generation of entrepreneurs or citizens had a problem with recycling that wasn't being solved adequately by private markets, so they petitioned the government to organize it. The alternative is privatizing the profits and socializing the costs, which is way worse.
- gruez 6y ago
  >I would assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's actually picked up? Depends on where the cardboard was dumped. If it's on the curb somewhere, on public property, there's a stronger case that the property as abandoned[1]. However, if it's a dumpster located on private property, an argument can be made that the residents/businesses disposing of the garbage is immediately transferring ownership to the city. eg. consider the scenario where a factory dumps its metal scraps in a dumpster so it can be picked up by a recycler (who will pay the factory for the scraps). You also see something similar for restaurants where they have a dedicated storage container for oil, which a dedicated company picks up and pays them for it. In those cases it's clear that the "garbage" isn't being abandoned, and still belongs to either the original owner, or the company designated to pick it up. [1] Although even that's tricky, eg. the process for clothing donations involves leaving your clothes on the curb for pick up. Are articles of clothing left like that fair game for anyone else to snatch first? I don't think so, given that the intent is for it to be picked up by the designated entity, not merely just abandoned.
  - owenversteeg 6y ago
    While I think you're right (in terms of laws around abandoned property) it's worth noting that the gangs discussed in the article only steal cardboard in large quantities. At $80/ton, even a pound of cardboard is just 3 cents. Now, in poorer countries, people absolutely do collect individual pieces of scrap cardboard, even at those incredibly low prices. But that's more related to a much, much sadder discussion about income inequality. If you want to see what that looks like, living on scraps from the streets, Reuters recently did an interesting photo piece: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-homeless-widerimage/how-to-survive-a-siberian-winter-with-no-home-idUSKBN20D1EI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-homeless-widerimag...
    - rolph 6y ago
      >> living on scraps from the streets << been at this bit ^ for as long as i can remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism https://freegan.info/ https://freegan.info/
  - 6y ago
- itronitron 6y ago
  I would assume that as well. In some jurisdictions in the US there is a precedent that when you take your trash out to the curb it is no longer private property, so the cops (and anyone else) can take it and search through it for goodies. I would expect the same rules to apply to recycling bins as well.
fouc 6y ago
Criminals are after the beige gold! Ha. I'm somewhat baffled by how the government is mishandling this so bad. Just find a way to legitimize the so-called criminals, make it easier for them to work within the law, and then tax them.
- gruez 6y ago
  That doesn't solve the main issue: that recycling programs are partially subsidized by profitable waste. eg. cardboard and metals might make a profit when factoring in cost of pick up and processing, but plastic might not. At the same time, you want to promote recycling across all types of materials, so you don't want to penalize people for recycling plastic[1]. If you have private companies picking off the profitable waste, the taxpayers will have to make up the shortfall. You see the same funding model in other areas as well. eg. the postal service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#Universal_service_obligation_and_monopoly_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#U... [1] Although some argue that if something isn't worth recycling at market rates, then we shouldn't recycle it at all, because it likely means that it's a net-negative for the environment.
  - fouc 6y ago
    Yeah I was going to mention that. Recycling programs probably shouldn't be depending on profitable waste. This seems like a problem of mis-aligned incentives..
    - PTOB 6y ago
      Yup. Dependency on profitable waste is a business decision that comes with some risk. If it doesn't pan out, it's the company's own fault.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Why does everything need to be taxed? Just increase the frequency the "legitimate" trash collectors bid on the contract (if needed) and pay for it. Sure it will be a little more expensive because you aren't subsidizing it with cardboard but it doesn't really matter since that money is going right back into the community (through however the thieves spend it). This is only an issue because government is a mess of silos, fiefdoms and incompetent resource handling. The people who deal with the trash contract feel slighted because they don't want any extra money coming out of their bucket even if the net result would be a wash for the community as a whole.
dhosek 6y ago
Kind of reminds me of the rash of metal thefts in the '00s in Los Angeles. Thieves would steal wiring from power lines and most notoriously, an historic statue in Carthay Circle was stolen, but later recovered from a scrap yard and the thieves identified and arrested. Only after metal prices came back down in 2008–2009 did the thefts stop. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-statue-ba.html https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-statue-...
- didntknowya 6y ago
  still happened in developing countries. people stealing metal parts from public utilities (fences, manhole covers, etc) to sell as scrap. and with it a few cases of deaths due to thieves trying to steal copper from power poles/boxes and getting electrocuted.
- analog31 6y ago
  I grew up in an area where thieves would go into an unoccupied house, and strip out the copper plumbing and wiring from the inside. It rendered the house practically unrepairable, and many such houses were abandoned.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    Sounds like Detroit. A lot of amazing homes were abandoned and then rendered unsalvageable.
  - itronitron 6y ago
    There is a funny scene in 'The Wire' where one of the local addicts realizes they can just steal the uninstalled copper tubing from houses that are in the process of being renovated/gentrified rather than stripping old plumbing out.
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Sometimes unscrupulous plumbers fixing a clog would cut out 6' or 8' chunks of 4" solid copper drain pipe in old houses and splice in PVC for some extra $$$.
scott_russell 6y ago
It seems like the obvious problem here is that the "legitimate recycling firms, and the city and other local authorities who take a cut from their sales" should be giving a cut of those sales to the residents and shop owners who are supplying the "beige gold".
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  Then you've created a logistics nightmare of tracking who gave what so that they can get their fair share of the cut, and inevitably parasites will emerge to exploit that network too. Would that be any better?...
- acheron9383 6y ago
  I see the resale value of the recycling as subsidizing the cost of the recycling service. We pay for,(or your taxes do, depends on where you live) trash/recycling because then someone comes on regular intervals to take it. Part of that cost is "paying" them in the recyclables as well. Honestly the reduced complexity of the current system is nicer then having to pay me back like some sort of recyclables consignment scheme.
  - pests 6y ago
    Right. I thought the whole expectation of a company coming and taking a bunch of waste and recyclables from you for either free or low-cost was that they were profiting from your waste.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
serjester 6y ago
Don't particularly see a problem here since the cardboard is still getting recycled. Seems like a nifty arbitrage opportunity. Wish the government would channel their profits to creating a superior service instead of prosecuting their competition. Obviously there's nuances but still.
- URSpider94 6y ago
  The issue is that the cost of running a recycling route is largely fixed - one truck, one crew, one day to run the route. That’s balanced out by selling the cardboard that is collected to a recycling plant. If half of the cardboard goes missing, then the cost stays the same but the revenue drops by half. The municipality is going to have to make up that shortfall by raising taxes or increasing the charge for trash/recycling hauling.
  - sli 6y ago
    They're being beaten by a competitor.
  - rvnx 6y ago
    Well, the waste collectors will recalculate the price with more transparency and start sorting the lower value items instead of putting everything inside a landfill. Then they will create a spin-off with more efficient people dedicated to collect "precious" trash.
  - serjester 6y ago
    I think that's a perfectly valid point. At the same time it seems like the incentives are misaligned. I imagine most cardboard getting recycled is from large distributors, not individuals, so maybe they should be getting rebates on their trash bills. But implementing that might be a nightmare so maybe you're right. It's just hard to fault someone for performing a public service.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 6y ago
stickfigure 6y ago
I'm confused by this quote: "And theft is hardly ever reported by companies, because why would they? If magic pixies have nicked their waste cardboard then it means they don't have to pay a firm like mine to come and pick it up. So they are going to keep schtum [quiet]." So... these gangs are wandering around picking up cardbord from business that would have otherwise had to pay for someone to haul it off? Sounds like a public service! Something is fundamentally wrong here.
- techslave 6y ago
  what is wrong? it costs money to pick up anything. equipment fuel salaries workman’s comp etc. thieves don’t have such costs.
  - golem14 6y ago
    Well of course the thieves have a cost, too -- they need to eat, too. But they probably pay no taxes and employ cheap labor and can undercut the official recycler.
- snarfy 6y ago
  It's the pricing structure. They charge less to take something away if it has some value. The magic pixies are taking the value out. It's a public service until your bill goes up to haul away the trash nobody wants.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    God forbid trash be de-bundled from valuable material and priced accordingly. It might even give companies an incentive to ensure more of their waste stream is recyclable and less of it trash <clutches pearls>.
    - 1-more 6y ago
      The day packaging disposal prices are internalized 100% into sales prices will be very interesting. I doubt it will ever happen on a faster timeline than, say, fully automated luxury gay space communism, but it's worth dreaming about.
whatsmyusername 6y ago
I mean, so what? Isn't this a good problem to have? Outside of the obvious problem of personal information, I'd be fine if there was an economic incentive for people to steal my garbage.
torgian 6y ago
Seems to me the solution is to just let the people take the cardboard ( and to an extent, other scrap material ). If they’re taking it to make money, some of them probably actually need that money. I know people who walk around making a hundred bucks a day collecting cans and cardboard. They got no other job. They can’t get any other job. That’s how they survive.
- pests 6y ago
  Not to mention, that person is extracting a valuable resource (evedent from his pay) that society otherwise would have forgot. Either it would have been ignored or extracted at a higher cost (and benefiting those already wealthy.)
  - sukilot 6y ago
    That's like saying shoplifting is extracting a valuable resource that society forgot.
URSpider94 6y ago
People are missing the point here. Stealing recycling from the curbside is not a victimless crime. Municipal waste hauling contracts are based on a balance between the cost to dispose of trash and less-valuable recyclables like mixed paper and the profit from high-value recyclables like aluminum and cardboard. If people start skimming all the valuable materials out of the bins, then the net cost to the city goes up, and they’ll have to either raise rates or make it up by cutting costs somewhere else.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  That sounds like a plausible scenario, but why would it be a problem for society in general? It seems like saying "what if gas stations can't sell candy bars at inflated prices, they'll have to raise the price of gas". Or "if credit card transaction fees are regulated, cash back deals will go away". Ok, so be it. A sudden change might be bad, but is it worth seriously fighting a new equilibrium?
  - pstrateman 6y ago
    It's simple theft. It's the same problem for society as any other kind of theft.
    - Fej 6y ago
      I think you're being downvoted since you didn't explain your position, but I don't think it's wrong, just that it's probably not quite so simple.
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        Property rights can be defined in a lot of different, somewhat arbitrary ways, so I think a deeper explanation for why something is bad is sometimes needed than just "it's theft". If the exclusive right to the cardboard was taken away from the people who currently claim it, then it wouldn't be theft. Would that make it ok?
    - 6y ago
aussieguy1234 6y ago
In The Philippines, were there is a large amount of homeless people who use cardboard for shelter, certain homeless people are known to hoard cardboard and then sell it to other homeless people.
tdeck 6y ago
This happens with cans and bottles here in San Francisco as well because they can be redeemed for the CRV. People rifle through the blue bins on my street every week. I assume maybe recycling pickup would be cheaper without this. Meanwhile turning in these bottles myself for the deposit would be a huge nightmare because the centers are only in far-flung parts of the city without easy access to transit.
- rvnx 6y ago
  In my town as well, street people are collecting plastic bottles as fast as possible in order to get back a couple of cents. As a result, the trash is less full, it doesn't spill everywhere, and the "legitimate" waste pickers have less to carry as well. And for myself, it's an added value: I don't need to sort, I don't need to pay. It costs me 10 cents per bottle but I'm sure it will be properly processed and that the money will go to the most motivated.
  - tdeck 6y ago
    In SF we have a separate bin for r
    - jwilk 6y ago
      R?
  - superhuzza 6y ago
    Around where I live, it works really well in parks and busy streets. But in residential areas the homeless people come and slash open trash bags, and dump garbage all over the street. Even if you put all your bottles in a clear bag for them, they will slash your black trash bags anyways just to check. It's super annoying and probably dangerous to them as well.
    - rvnx 6y ago
      Sad :( This would make sense to be punished I guess (since it's damaging property)
adolph 6y ago
> They are accused of stealing and shipping more than 67,000 tonnes of waste a year since 2015, at an average value of €10m ($11.8m; £9m) per year. > Believed to have been involved in 11 of the 18 routes in the city, it is estimated that they cost the City Council of Madrid a total of €16m in lost recycling revenues. > ... > Like any commodity, the price of recycled cardboard ebbs and flows according to global demand. Simon Ellin, chief executive of UK trade body The Recycling Association, says the current price is between £70 and £80 per tonne. (67000 / 5) * 75 = 1,005,000. The math doesn't seem right.
- elgfare 6y ago
  67000 per year. They also said the price was historically higher.
Ansil849 6y ago
Can someone please explain how this constitutes theft. Under British law, does recycling left on a public street instantly become the property of the State? Could someone link to the relevant British legislation around this.
- PJDK 6y ago
  Not a lawyer - but the act of putting something on the street doesn't make you stop owning it. If you leave a bike unlocked and someone takes it they still stole it, even if you were unwise not to lock it up.
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  This is happening in Spain, not the UK. The truly hilarious thing about this is while they're apparently on the ball about gypsies stealing cardboard, the Spanish police mostly don't care about squatters moving into your house and trashing it. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/20/inenglish/1521552348_789706.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/20/inenglish/15215... https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/04/27/spanish-police-evict-gypsy-squatters-from-ex-pats-home-on-the-costa-del-sol-stuck-in-the-uk-under-lockdown/ https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/04/27/spanish-police-evi...
qubex 6y ago
This is my reading of the situation: Firms are disposing of their trash and “official recyclers” are being preempted from collecting some (valuable) portion of that trash by gangs. Clearly the recycling firms are taking a hit, but they’ve also agreed to take a risk. Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their furnaces to heat their buildings in winter, or something like that. There can be fluctuations in output of that trash. We’d all hope, generally, that the amount of trash worldwide will tend to decrease (though of course, so far it isn’t). As far as I’m concerned, this acceleration of the rate of collection of trash, an arms race between official and unofficial recyclers, should be considered a net positive for society: after all, a public service is being provided more efficiently to the community. Does this affect the profitability of the official firms, left to handle only the ‘undesirable’ fraction? Absolutely, but that needs to be handled by market mechanisms, readjusting (upwards) the price of disposal of the undesirable fraction of waste, which in turn will drive down the relative cost of using that cardboard that everybody apparently is so eager to pick off the sidewalk or pilfer out of the dumpsters. As usual, somebody has instituted a monopoly (trash collection) and is moaning that they’re not getting as much benefit from it as they had expected, because market forces are eroding away their pre-eminence. Isn’t this what what free-market economics is all about?
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their furnaces to heat their buildings in winter, or something like that. They technically could, but disposing of trash by burning it is generally illegal in most countries. > after all, a public service is being provided more efficiently to the community. Every service can be provided more efficiently if you don't pay taxes and don't need to consider regulations.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> The police have photos of some of the men crawling in and out of recycling bins. The guys who are crawling into recycling bins are likely just down-on-their luck, broke people who are trying to feed their families. I'm not even sure they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are taking the food out of someone's mouth doing so. I think this should be pursued, but unless they are catching the higher ups who are really profiting off of this, it's pointless and just hurts the poor.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > I'm not even sure they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are taking the food out of someone's mouth doing so. Just to be clear, I think that these two 'they's are different. The first 'they' is the recycling-bin crawlers, and the second 'they' (the ones taking the food out of mouths) are the prosecutors, not the crawlers, right?
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Yes. I don't think bin crawlers are leaving anyone hungry.
rvnx 6y ago
The fastest the trash is collected, the better for the society. These guys provide the service for free and faster than the "legitimate" one. They didn't threaten anyone. They just came, picked up the trash, and left. The only angry people are the "legitimate" waste collectors who pay kickbacks to politicians to keep this monopoly alive.
- giarc 6y ago
  They were also charged with money laundering. I suspect if they had set up a legitimate business and signed contracts with customers for "free pickup" and paid taxes on profits etc, they wouldn't be in jail.
  - rvnx 6y ago
    Money laundering has this vague definition of reusing or reinvesting any money from a crime. You can do a very minor crime and be charged for money laundering (which is a serious offense).
    - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
      > Money laundering has this vague definition of reusing or reinvesting any money from a crime. In the criminal context Money laundering doesn’t have a vague definition. It is a crime with very specific definitions codified in statutes, each having their own elements and controlling case law from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, at the US Federal level there are 4 very specific types of unlawful money laundering (promotional, concealment, structuring and tax evasion). And at least at the Federal Level the companion statute prohibits depositing or spending more than $10,000 from the predicated offense.
      - rvnx 6y ago
        It depends on each countries, even inside the Eurozone it can get complex, for one of the European countries it is: (1) Money laundering means: 1) the concealment or disguise of the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement, right of ownership or other rights related to property derived from criminal activity or property obtained instead of such property; or 2) the conversion, transfer, acquisition, possession or use of property derived from criminal activity or property obtained instead of such property for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property or of assisting a person who is involved in criminal activity to evade the legal consequences of his or her action -- "the conversion, transfer, acquisition, possession or use of property derived from criminal activity" can be applied to a lot of situations. Even a shop thief could be accused of money laundering. Obviously it would be interesting to see how the judgment goes. If there is any follow-up I'm very interested.
barbegal 6y ago
So at ~ $170/£130 tonne an average cardboard box which weighs 500g will get you 8.5c/6.5p. Assuming you can remove 5 boxes per minute that equates to 300 boxes per hour or $25/£20 per hour. I can see why there might be a demand but it doesn't seem hugely profitable unless you are stealing cardboard which has already been compacted or which you can remove into a vehicle fairly easily.
- r0m4n0 6y ago
  In NYC the boxes are already bundled and left on sidewalks all over the city, I think because they are required to make it as easy as possible to collect/separate. Whenever I move I usually walk around a few blocks and snag a few bundles to assist as packing material. Little did I know I was actually committing a crime
parliament32 6y ago
The funny thing is this is just straight-up competition. If these guys can generate money from taking it away for free, why am I paying the city to take it away for me? Hell, if I owned a business I'd happily deliver the cardboard to these "thieves" than pay a waste management company.
- refurb 6y ago
  Scale? A company can haul away recycling for $X as long as they get Y volume to help recoup costs. When they can only collect Y-Z%, then $X no longer covers costs and the price goes up for the city.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    But this is the opposite problem. Our "thieves" haul much less volume than the real companies, yet charge less. Something's not adding up.
  - rvnx 6y ago
    The financial reports of Waste Management Inc are slightly less pessimistic :)
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > If these guys can generate money from taking it away for free, why am I paying the city to take it away for me? If I had to guess, I would say because city services do not exist in a vacuum. The cardboard is probably subsidizing the landfill. If someone else takes the cardboard, they would have to increase fees on other waste to break even. Almost every government service is like that. You may find a cheaper option than postal service to send a letter a couple of blocks within a large city; but if everyone does this, the postal rates have to go up. Urban and high-density delivery subsidize rural and small town delivery. You can find a cheaper insurance if you are a 20-year old healthy person with no risk factors; but if all of young and healthy people do this, the costs for those remaining in the public system would go dramatically higher.
  - 6y ago
Imaiomus 6y ago
Article fails to point that Ecoembes in Spain its a defacto recycling monopolistic mafia, in Europe usually you get paid for your bottles and trash, here you have to paid a insane tax and then they sell the trash on top getting even more profit https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-ciudad/medioambiente/los-expertos-critican-la-ineficacia-del-modelo-ecoembes_4718_102.html https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-ciudad/medio... https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-no-es-lo-que-parece/ https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-no...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
smileysteve 6y ago
So, over here in America (Georgia) the recycling company won't pickup cardboard if it won't fit in their tiny bin; Which means by complex then pays our trash company to take the cardboard. using a dumpster that could probably last 4x as long without cardboard. tldr; come to America, please take some cardboard.
yodelshady 6y ago
For some historical context, human urine and faeces/night soil have been sold privately in several societies (one episode of "no such thing as a fish" covers tenant's rights to same in... I want to say 19th century Japan. One was your property, the other the landlord's). There doesn't really seem to be a problem here. The public sector is for things we agree collectivity benefit us, but can't be properly monetised.
jordache 6y ago
how is this theft? Isn't the cardboard simply garbage?
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Nope, recycled many times. And with everyone buying crap online, there's actually demand for re-using cardboard.
petercooper 6y ago
They can come round my place. My driveway is covered with endless cardboard from various deliveries and purchases. We have to book a slot at the local recycling centre and lug it up there ourselves every few weeks :-)
SeanFerree 6y ago
Though I'm glad it is still ultimately getting recycled, I could see this having a negative impact on the rural, independent sites that the general public relies on. Would hate to see those go away. Then people would just throw more into the trash.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

86 points by sohkamyung 6y ago

I definitely learned something intriguing today - thanks for sharing!

Is it theft if the people and companies throwing it out don't care? I would assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's actually picked up?

13of40 6y ago
On the one hand, it doesn't seem right for the government to use this as a moneymaking opportunity at the expense of other "entrepreneurs" but on the other hand the official pipeline probably adheres to some standards they wouldn't, like not dumping it in the woods if it can't be sold.
- chrischen 6y ago
  > like not dumping it in the woods if it can't be sold. I'd imagine that's not as big of a problem as it may sound since the criminals wouldn't want to lose money like that. That being said if the criminals are getting to the recycling first they're technically providing better (faster) service.
  - 13of40 6y ago
    Like any other industry, I assume the value of these things ebbs and flows. If you look at recycling in the US when China decided not to accept our waste, I bet a lot of companies found themselves stuck with tons of material that suddenly had negative value. It's easier to imagine a government agency doing the right thing in that situation than a criminal enterprise.
    - chrischen 6y ago
      That's an isolated incident. I don't think the cardboard they've been collecting all this time regularly will have day to day shifts in values that cause them to randomly discard some in the forest.
      - danans 6y ago
        A lot of cardboard has no recycling value because it is contaminated with other materials. For example, used pizza boxes soaked with grease are not recyclable. If you're lucky and your city has a municipal composting program, they can be composted, or some places incinerate stuff like this for energy, but otherwise they end up in the trash, or worse, discarded in the forest. That doesn't stop people from throwing them in the recycling bin though.
- arrosenberg 6y ago
  The government doing it means that a previous generation of entrepreneurs or citizens had a problem with recycling that wasn't being solved adequately by private markets, so they petitioned the government to organize it. The alternative is privatizing the profits and socializing the costs, which is way worse.
gruez 6y ago
>I would assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's actually picked up? Depends on where the cardboard was dumped. If it's on the curb somewhere, on public property, there's a stronger case that the property as abandoned[1]. However, if it's a dumpster located on private property, an argument can be made that the residents/businesses disposing of the garbage is immediately transferring ownership to the city. eg. consider the scenario where a factory dumps its metal scraps in a dumpster so it can be picked up by a recycler (who will pay the factory for the scraps). You also see something similar for restaurants where they have a dedicated storage container for oil, which a dedicated company picks up and pays them for it. In those cases it's clear that the "garbage" isn't being abandoned, and still belongs to either the original owner, or the company designated to pick it up. [1] Although even that's tricky, eg. the process for clothing donations involves leaving your clothes on the curb for pick up. Are articles of clothing left like that fair game for anyone else to snatch first? I don't think so, given that the intent is for it to be picked up by the designated entity, not merely just abandoned.
- owenversteeg 6y ago
  While I think you're right (in terms of laws around abandoned property) it's worth noting that the gangs discussed in the article only steal cardboard in large quantities. At $80/ton, even a pound of cardboard is just 3 cents. Now, in poorer countries, people absolutely do collect individual pieces of scrap cardboard, even at those incredibly low prices. But that's more related to a much, much sadder discussion about income inequality. If you want to see what that looks like, living on scraps from the streets, Reuters recently did an interesting photo piece: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-homeless-widerimage/how-to-survive-a-siberian-winter-with-no-home-idUSKBN20D1EI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-homeless-widerimag...
  - rolph 6y ago
    >> living on scraps from the streets << been at this bit ^ for as long as i can remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism https://freegan.info/ https://freegan.info/
- 6y ago
itronitron 6y ago
I would assume that as well. In some jurisdictions in the US there is a precedent that when you take your trash out to the curb it is no longer private property, so the cops (and anyone else) can take it and search through it for goodies. I would expect the same rules to apply to recycling bins as well.

fouc 6y ago

Criminals are after the beige gold! Ha. I'm somewhat baffled by how the government is mishandling this so bad. Just find a way to legitimize the so-called criminals, make it easier for them to work within the law, and then tax them.

gruez 6y ago
That doesn't solve the main issue: that recycling programs are partially subsidized by profitable waste. eg. cardboard and metals might make a profit when factoring in cost of pick up and processing, but plastic might not. At the same time, you want to promote recycling across all types of materials, so you don't want to penalize people for recycling plastic[1]. If you have private companies picking off the profitable waste, the taxpayers will have to make up the shortfall. You see the same funding model in other areas as well. eg. the postal service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#Universal_service_obligation_and_monopoly_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#U... [1] Although some argue that if something isn't worth recycling at market rates, then we shouldn't recycle it at all, because it likely means that it's a net-negative for the environment.
- fouc 6y ago
  Yeah I was going to mention that. Recycling programs probably shouldn't be depending on profitable waste. This seems like a problem of mis-aligned incentives..
  - PTOB 6y ago
    Yup. Dependency on profitable waste is a business decision that comes with some risk. If it doesn't pan out, it's the company's own fault.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Why does everything need to be taxed? Just increase the frequency the "legitimate" trash collectors bid on the contract (if needed) and pay for it. Sure it will be a little more expensive because you aren't subsidizing it with cardboard but it doesn't really matter since that money is going right back into the community (through however the thieves spend it). This is only an issue because government is a mess of silos, fiefdoms and incompetent resource handling. The people who deal with the trash contract feel slighted because they don't want any extra money coming out of their bucket even if the net result would be a wash for the community as a whole.

dhosek 6y ago

Kind of reminds me of the rash of metal thefts in the '00s in Los Angeles. Thieves would steal wiring from power lines and most notoriously, an historic statue in Carthay Circle was stolen, but later recovered from a scrap yard and the thieves identified and arrested. Only after metal prices came back down in 2008–2009 did the thefts stop. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-statue-ba.html https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-statue-...

didntknowya 6y ago
still happened in developing countries. people stealing metal parts from public utilities (fences, manhole covers, etc) to sell as scrap. and with it a few cases of deaths due to thieves trying to steal copper from power poles/boxes and getting electrocuted.
analog31 6y ago
I grew up in an area where thieves would go into an unoccupied house, and strip out the copper plumbing and wiring from the inside. It rendered the house practically unrepairable, and many such houses were abandoned.
- dhosek 6y ago
  Sounds like Detroit. A lot of amazing homes were abandoned and then rendered unsalvageable.
- itronitron 6y ago
  There is a funny scene in 'The Wire' where one of the local addicts realizes they can just steal the uninstalled copper tubing from houses that are in the process of being renovated/gentrified rather than stripping old plumbing out.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Sometimes unscrupulous plumbers fixing a clog would cut out 6' or 8' chunks of 4" solid copper drain pipe in old houses and splice in PVC for some extra $$$.

scott_russell 6y ago

It seems like the obvious problem here is that the "legitimate recycling firms, and the city and other local authorities who take a cut from their sales" should be giving a cut of those sales to the residents and shop owners who are supplying the "beige gold".

AceJohnny2 6y ago
Then you've created a logistics nightmare of tracking who gave what so that they can get their fair share of the cut, and inevitably parasites will emerge to exploit that network too. Would that be any better?...
acheron9383 6y ago
I see the resale value of the recycling as subsidizing the cost of the recycling service. We pay for,(or your taxes do, depends on where you live) trash/recycling because then someone comes on regular intervals to take it. Part of that cost is "paying" them in the recyclables as well. Honestly the reduced complexity of the current system is nicer then having to pay me back like some sort of recyclables consignment scheme.
- pests 6y ago
  Right. I thought the whole expectation of a company coming and taking a bunch of waste and recyclables from you for either free or low-cost was that they were profiting from your waste.
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serjester 6y ago

Don't particularly see a problem here since the cardboard is still getting recycled. Seems like a nifty arbitrage opportunity. Wish the government would channel their profits to creating a superior service instead of prosecuting their competition. Obviously there's nuances but still.

URSpider94 6y ago
The issue is that the cost of running a recycling route is largely fixed - one truck, one crew, one day to run the route. That’s balanced out by selling the cardboard that is collected to a recycling plant. If half of the cardboard goes missing, then the cost stays the same but the revenue drops by half. The municipality is going to have to make up that shortfall by raising taxes or increasing the charge for trash/recycling hauling.
- sli 6y ago
  They're being beaten by a competitor.
- rvnx 6y ago
  Well, the waste collectors will recalculate the price with more transparency and start sorting the lower value items instead of putting everything inside a landfill. Then they will create a spin-off with more efficient people dedicated to collect "precious" trash.
- serjester 6y ago
  I think that's a perfectly valid point. At the same time it seems like the incentives are misaligned. I imagine most cardboard getting recycled is from large distributors, not individuals, so maybe they should be getting rebates on their trash bills. But implementing that might be a nightmare so maybe you're right. It's just hard to fault someone for performing a public service.
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luckylion 6y ago

stickfigure 6y ago

I'm confused by this quote: "And theft is hardly ever reported by companies, because why would they? If magic pixies have nicked their waste cardboard then it means they don't have to pay a firm like mine to come and pick it up. So they are going to keep schtum [quiet]." So... these gangs are wandering around picking up cardbord from business that would have otherwise had to pay for someone to haul it off? Sounds like a public service! Something is fundamentally wrong here.

techslave 6y ago
what is wrong? it costs money to pick up anything. equipment fuel salaries workman’s comp etc. thieves don’t have such costs.
- golem14 6y ago
  Well of course the thieves have a cost, too -- they need to eat, too. But they probably pay no taxes and employ cheap labor and can undercut the official recycler.
snarfy 6y ago
It's the pricing structure. They charge less to take something away if it has some value. The magic pixies are taking the value out. It's a public service until your bill goes up to haul away the trash nobody wants.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  God forbid trash be de-bundled from valuable material and priced accordingly. It might even give companies an incentive to ensure more of their waste stream is recyclable and less of it trash <clutches pearls>.
  - 1-more 6y ago
    The day packaging disposal prices are internalized 100% into sales prices will be very interesting. I doubt it will ever happen on a faster timeline than, say, fully automated luxury gay space communism, but it's worth dreaming about.

whatsmyusername 6y ago

I mean, so what? Isn't this a good problem to have? Outside of the obvious problem of personal information, I'd be fine if there was an economic incentive for people to steal my garbage.

torgian 6y ago

Seems to me the solution is to just let the people take the cardboard ( and to an extent, other scrap material ). If they’re taking it to make money, some of them probably actually need that money. I know people who walk around making a hundred bucks a day collecting cans and cardboard. They got no other job. They can’t get any other job. That’s how they survive.

pests 6y ago
Not to mention, that person is extracting a valuable resource (evedent from his pay) that society otherwise would have forgot. Either it would have been ignored or extracted at a higher cost (and benefiting those already wealthy.)
- sukilot 6y ago
  That's like saying shoplifting is extracting a valuable resource that society forgot.

URSpider94 6y ago

People are missing the point here. Stealing recycling from the curbside is not a victimless crime. Municipal waste hauling contracts are based on a balance between the cost to dispose of trash and less-valuable recyclables like mixed paper and the profit from high-value recyclables like aluminum and cardboard. If people start skimming all the valuable materials out of the bins, then the net cost to the city goes up, and they’ll have to either raise rates or make it up by cutting costs somewhere else.

perl4ever 6y ago
That sounds like a plausible scenario, but why would it be a problem for society in general? It seems like saying "what if gas stations can't sell candy bars at inflated prices, they'll have to raise the price of gas". Or "if credit card transaction fees are regulated, cash back deals will go away". Ok, so be it. A sudden change might be bad, but is it worth seriously fighting a new equilibrium?
- pstrateman 6y ago
  It's simple theft. It's the same problem for society as any other kind of theft.
  - Fej 6y ago
    I think you're being downvoted since you didn't explain your position, but I don't think it's wrong, just that it's probably not quite so simple.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      Property rights can be defined in a lot of different, somewhat arbitrary ways, so I think a deeper explanation for why something is bad is sometimes needed than just "it's theft". If the exclusive right to the cardboard was taken away from the people who currently claim it, then it wouldn't be theft. Would that make it ok?
  - 6y ago

aussieguy1234 6y ago

In The Philippines, were there is a large amount of homeless people who use cardboard for shelter, certain homeless people are known to hoard cardboard and then sell it to other homeless people.

tdeck 6y ago

This happens with cans and bottles here in San Francisco as well because they can be redeemed for the CRV. People rifle through the blue bins on my street every week. I assume maybe recycling pickup would be cheaper without this. Meanwhile turning in these bottles myself for the deposit would be a huge nightmare because the centers are only in far-flung parts of the city without easy access to transit.

rvnx 6y ago
In my town as well, street people are collecting plastic bottles as fast as possible in order to get back a couple of cents. As a result, the trash is less full, it doesn't spill everywhere, and the "legitimate" waste pickers have less to carry as well. And for myself, it's an added value: I don't need to sort, I don't need to pay. It costs me 10 cents per bottle but I'm sure it will be properly processed and that the money will go to the most motivated.
- tdeck 6y ago
  In SF we have a separate bin for r
  - jwilk 6y ago
    R?
- superhuzza 6y ago
  Around where I live, it works really well in parks and busy streets. But in residential areas the homeless people come and slash open trash bags, and dump garbage all over the street. Even if you put all your bottles in a clear bag for them, they will slash your black trash bags anyways just to check. It's super annoying and probably dangerous to them as well.
  - rvnx 6y ago
    Sad :( This would make sense to be punished I guess (since it's damaging property)

adolph 6y ago

> They are accused of stealing and shipping more than 67,000 tonnes of waste a year since 2015, at an average value of €10m ($11.8m; £9m) per year. > Believed to have been involved in 11 of the 18 routes in the city, it is estimated that they cost the City Council of Madrid a total of €16m in lost recycling revenues. > ... > Like any commodity, the price of recycled cardboard ebbs and flows according to global demand. Simon Ellin, chief executive of UK trade body The Recycling Association, says the current price is between £70 and £80 per tonne. (67000 / 5) * 75 = 1,005,000. The math doesn't seem right.

elgfare 6y ago
67000 per year. They also said the price was historically higher.

Ansil849 6y ago

Can someone please explain how this constitutes theft. Under British law, does recycling left on a public street instantly become the property of the State? Could someone link to the relevant British legislation around this.

PJDK 6y ago
Not a lawyer - but the act of putting something on the street doesn't make you stop owning it. If you leave a bike unlocked and someone takes it they still stole it, even if you were unwise not to lock it up.
scottlocklin 6y ago
This is happening in Spain, not the UK. The truly hilarious thing about this is while they're apparently on the ball about gypsies stealing cardboard, the Spanish police mostly don't care about squatters moving into your house and trashing it. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/20/inenglish/1521552348_789706.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/20/inenglish/15215... https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/04/27/spanish-police-evict-gypsy-squatters-from-ex-pats-home-on-the-costa-del-sol-stuck-in-the-uk-under-lockdown/ https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/04/27/spanish-police-evi...

qubex 6y ago

This is my reading of the situation: Firms are disposing of their trash and “official recyclers” are being preempted from collecting some (valuable) portion of that trash by gangs. Clearly the recycling firms are taking a hit, but they’ve also agreed to take a risk. Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their furnaces to heat their buildings in winter, or something like that. There can be fluctuations in output of that trash. We’d all hope, generally, that the amount of trash worldwide will tend to decrease (though of course, so far it isn’t). As far as I’m concerned, this acceleration of the rate of collection of trash, an arms race between official and unofficial recyclers, should be considered a net positive for society: after all, a public service is being provided more efficiently to the community. Does this affect the profitability of the official firms, left to handle only the ‘undesirable’ fraction? Absolutely, but that needs to be handled by market mechanisms, readjusting (upwards) the price of disposal of the undesirable fraction of waste, which in turn will drive down the relative cost of using that cardboard that everybody apparently is so eager to pick off the sidewalk or pilfer out of the dumpsters. As usual, somebody has instituted a monopoly (trash collection) and is moaning that they’re not getting as much benefit from it as they had expected, because market forces are eroding away their pre-eminence. Isn’t this what what free-market economics is all about?

luckylion 6y ago
> Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their furnaces to heat their buildings in winter, or something like that. They technically could, but disposing of trash by burning it is generally illegal in most countries. > after all, a public service is being provided more efficiently to the community. Every service can be provided more efficiently if you don't pay taxes and don't need to consider regulations.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> The police have photos of some of the men crawling in and out of recycling bins. The guys who are crawling into recycling bins are likely just down-on-their luck, broke people who are trying to feed their families. I'm not even sure they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are taking the food out of someone's mouth doing so. I think this should be pursued, but unless they are catching the higher ups who are really profiting off of this, it's pointless and just hurts the poor.

JadeNB 6y ago
> I'm not even sure they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are taking the food out of someone's mouth doing so. Just to be clear, I think that these two 'they's are different. The first 'they' is the recycling-bin crawlers, and the second 'they' (the ones taking the food out of mouths) are the prosecutors, not the crawlers, right?
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Yes. I don't think bin crawlers are leaving anyone hungry.

rvnx 6y ago

The fastest the trash is collected, the better for the society. These guys provide the service for free and faster than the "legitimate" one. They didn't threaten anyone. They just came, picked up the trash, and left. The only angry people are the "legitimate" waste collectors who pay kickbacks to politicians to keep this monopoly alive.

giarc 6y ago
They were also charged with money laundering. I suspect if they had set up a legitimate business and signed contracts with customers for "free pickup" and paid taxes on profits etc, they wouldn't be in jail.
- rvnx 6y ago
  Money laundering has this vague definition of reusing or reinvesting any money from a crime. You can do a very minor crime and be charged for money laundering (which is a serious offense).
  - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
    > Money laundering has this vague definition of reusing or reinvesting any money from a crime. In the criminal context Money laundering doesn’t have a vague definition. It is a crime with very specific definitions codified in statutes, each having their own elements and controlling case law from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, at the US Federal level there are 4 very specific types of unlawful money laundering (promotional, concealment, structuring and tax evasion). And at least at the Federal Level the companion statute prohibits depositing or spending more than $10,000 from the predicated offense.
    - rvnx 6y ago
      It depends on each countries, even inside the Eurozone it can get complex, for one of the European countries it is: (1) Money laundering means: 1) the concealment or disguise of the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement, right of ownership or other rights related to property derived from criminal activity or property obtained instead of such property; or 2) the conversion, transfer, acquisition, possession or use of property derived from criminal activity or property obtained instead of such property for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property or of assisting a person who is involved in criminal activity to evade the legal consequences of his or her action -- "the conversion, transfer, acquisition, possession or use of property derived from criminal activity" can be applied to a lot of situations. Even a shop thief could be accused of money laundering. Obviously it would be interesting to see how the judgment goes. If there is any follow-up I'm very interested.

barbegal 6y ago

So at ~ $170/£130 tonne an average cardboard box which weighs 500g will get you 8.5c/6.5p. Assuming you can remove 5 boxes per minute that equates to 300 boxes per hour or $25/£20 per hour. I can see why there might be a demand but it doesn't seem hugely profitable unless you are stealing cardboard which has already been compacted or which you can remove into a vehicle fairly easily.

r0m4n0 6y ago
In NYC the boxes are already bundled and left on sidewalks all over the city, I think because they are required to make it as easy as possible to collect/separate. Whenever I move I usually walk around a few blocks and snag a few bundles to assist as packing material. Little did I know I was actually committing a crime

parliament32 6y ago

The funny thing is this is just straight-up competition. If these guys can generate money from taking it away for free, why am I paying the city to take it away for me? Hell, if I owned a business I'd happily deliver the cardboard to these "thieves" than pay a waste management company.

refurb 6y ago
Scale? A company can haul away recycling for $X as long as they get Y volume to help recoup costs. When they can only collect Y-Z%, then $X no longer covers costs and the price goes up for the city.
- parliament32 6y ago
  But this is the opposite problem. Our "thieves" haul much less volume than the real companies, yet charge less. Something's not adding up.
- rvnx 6y ago
  The financial reports of Waste Management Inc are slightly less pessimistic :)
smnrchrds 6y ago
> If these guys can generate money from taking it away for free, why am I paying the city to take it away for me? If I had to guess, I would say because city services do not exist in a vacuum. The cardboard is probably subsidizing the landfill. If someone else takes the cardboard, they would have to increase fees on other waste to break even. Almost every government service is like that. You may find a cheaper option than postal service to send a letter a couple of blocks within a large city; but if everyone does this, the postal rates have to go up. Urban and high-density delivery subsidize rural and small town delivery. You can find a cheaper insurance if you are a 20-year old healthy person with no risk factors; but if all of young and healthy people do this, the costs for those remaining in the public system would go dramatically higher.
- 6y ago

Imaiomus 6y ago

Article fails to point that Ecoembes in Spain its a defacto recycling monopolistic mafia, in Europe usually you get paid for your bottles and trash, here you have to paid a insane tax and then they sell the trash on top getting even more profit https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-ciudad/medioambiente/los-expertos-critican-la-ineficacia-del-modelo-ecoembes_4718_102.html https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-ciudad/medio... https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-no-es-lo-que-parece/ https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-no...

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smileysteve 6y ago

So, over here in America (Georgia) the recycling company won't pickup cardboard if it won't fit in their tiny bin; Which means by complex then pays our trash company to take the cardboard. using a dumpster that could probably last 4x as long without cardboard. tldr; come to America, please take some cardboard.

yodelshady 6y ago

For some historical context, human urine and faeces/night soil have been sold privately in several societies (one episode of "no such thing as a fish" covers tenant's rights to same in... I want to say 19th century Japan. One was your property, the other the landlord's). There doesn't really seem to be a problem here. The public sector is for things we agree collectivity benefit us, but can't be properly monetised.

jordache 6y ago

how is this theft? Isn't the cardboard simply garbage?

Scoundreller 6y ago
Nope, recycled many times. And with everyone buying crap online, there's actually demand for re-using cardboard.

petercooper 6y ago

They can come round my place. My driveway is covered with endless cardboard from various deliveries and purchases. We have to book a slot at the local recycling centre and lug it up there ourselves every few weeks :-)

SeanFerree 6y ago

Though I'm glad it is still ultimately getting recycled, I could see this having a negative impact on the rural, independent sites that the general public relies on. Would hate to see those go away. Then people would just throw more into the trash.

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