Every week, I place my blue recycle can out at the curbside so that the city can collect my papers, bags, bottles and cans.
The night before collection, an armada of braceros pushing shopping carts, marches down the street, and opens each blue container and removes those recyclables before the truck arrives. By the time the truck gets here, I wonder if 90% of what’s inside is gone.
Not only do these collectors take away cans and bottles, but they sit and read, as if they were detectives or librarians, any magazines, papers and documents that might be inside the blue refuse container.
Woe to anyone who thinks that their privacy might be protected in the garbage. I hope that everyone who recycles also owns a paper shredder! And what exactly is LA recycling when most of what they come to collect is missing?
Here in Van Nuys 