Brooklyn Boro

OPINION: Bottle and can collecting is more than a nuisance and it’s time to address it

August 10, 2017 By Liam McCabe For the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Liam McCabe, at the podium. Photo courtesy of McCabe
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Since announcing my run for City Council, I have met and had lengthy conversations with countless neighbors of mine who live in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach and Bensonhurst and one issue keeps coming up over and over again in every neighborhood.  

Until now, no community leader or elected official has addressed it, but it remains perhaps the biggest pet peeve of my neighbors.  It’s time to stop pretending that this problem does not exist and time to start a dialogue about the issue.  

The bottle and can collecting that has been going on in our neighborhoods is out of hand.  This practice is more than a nuisance.  It creates a culture of trespassing, dirties streets, subjects homeowners to costly summonses for sanitation violation and it leads to stress and confusion among neighbors.  

Nothing seems to have constituents of the 43rd Council District more frustrated, exasperated and ready to “give up” than people trespassing in their yard, going through their garbage and taking recyclables.  

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A fundamental issue with bottle and can collecting is that it actually promotes trespassing.  Bottle and can collectors open closed gates and walk onto private property uninvited and there is no consequence.  Sometimes they enter houses, if there is a bag of garbage in the vestibule, waiting to be taken to the curb.  This is a very real safety concern, and it is not one to be ignored.  Allowing bottle and can collectors to habitually enter private property without permission shows complacency toward trespassing.

Over time, this is making it harder for neighbors to look out for each other.  The more we become accustomed to seeing uninvited individuals on property, the more we turn off some of our situational awareness.  Once we do that, it’s harder to stop the real safety threats like thieves and intruders.  It’s a slippery slope, and a dangerous one.

In addition to trespassing concerns, bottle and can collecting leads to sanitation violations, not for the collectors who empty bags and leave trash on the street, but for the homeowners whose garbage was rummaged through illegally.  

Homeowners are subject to summonses from the Sanitation Department if their bags are opened and/or if garbage is left on the sidewalk, even if the homeowners themselves followed the appropriate protocol before a can collector opened the bag and left the mess.

That means that even homeowners who are doing everything right are being fined hundreds of dollars as a result of other peoples’ actions, and they have no recourse.

On a neighbor-to-neighbor level, the rise in bottle and can collecting across Brooklyn is leading to cultural misconceptions and a cultural communication breakdown. Younger generations report feeling embarrassed and frustrated by the older members of their community who are out collecting cans but there is a cultural norm not to correct elders.

A common misconception is that most of the individuals who are collecting bottles in our neighborhoods are doing so because they are poor and need the money.  In fact, I have learned that the collecting gives older adults something to do and keeps them from having to ask younger generations for “walking around money.”

Like so many of the quality of life issues that our neighborhoods face, the answer is to enforce the laws that are on the books and to provide community-level education about how to understand and solve the problem.  

DSNY and NYPD need to issue summonses to can collectors who are in the act of collecting cans and make arrests to the most heinous offenders.  These actions may sound harsh to some but we will only get results if we have a zero-tolerance policy.

Rather than ticketing and punishing the homeowners who were not involved in creating the mess on the streets in front of their houses, enforce the law so that those who are breaking it suffer the consequences. If we crack down on this quality of life crime, a strong message will be sent to those that engage in this activity that the 43rd Council District is a can-collecting-free zone.

A disturbing part of this epidemic is that there are reports that these cans are being returned to an underground enterprise that takes the cans across state lines to double the return on the face value.  For example, a bottle that has a redemption value of 5 cents in New York has double that value in Michigan. So these scammers are buying cans in N.Y. and hauling them a few hundred miles for a 100-percent profit.

The community board needs to get more involved in educating can collectors and homeowners about trespassing and sanitation laws.  For example, leaving your bottles in a bag on top of your garbage can within your property is not a smart way to deter trespassing because it is still encouraging someone to enter private property.   It is time to start a community-wide No Trespassing Initiative to combat the bottle and can collecting problem and to keep our homes and yards safe.

To solve the bottle and can collecting issue, we need to peel back all of its layers and address them.  We need to bring recycling and bottle collection centers into the solution.  This includes providing signs in multiple languages that explain the legal do’s and don’ts of obtaining deposit bottles and requiring centers to post the signs on site.  

We need to bring NYPD to recycling and collection centers to speak with bottle collectors and explain the rules and regulations, and to outline the consequences of violating those rules and regulations.

Finally, we need to promise and provide follow-up.  Enforce the laws, get out in the community and continue to keep a watchful eye.  Small problems become big ones quickly, and we are seeing that happen with the bottle and can collecting.  Let’s stem the tide.

 


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