The Corporate Trash Scandal

"Stop making a mess," screamed a worker from the Sunset Scavenger Company truck as the lonely hunched figure leaned over the soiled trashcan quickly transferring cans and bottles into his sturdy cart. The old manï's face remained impassive as people barked orders at him. You could tell he was used to being belittled for doing his job picking up recyclables from various trash bins and garbage cans in the area. He quickly finished his task and headed for the next can as we watched him from our hidden spot.

Today POOR Magazine was going undercover to do a story on recycling in the Mission district. With me was POOR Magazine editor Tiny and her observant son Mr. T. We were up at 6a.m. to follow Sunset Scavengers on their routes for our groundbreaking, under cover piece on recycling waste.

"Have you got the camera and the video cam?" asks Tiny, as she keeps checking her purse for keys. I think to myself " Yeah, But I don't know how to operate them." This is my first 60 minutes-type undercover article. You know, the hard-hitting journalistic piece where they pop out from behind the wall with tape of the crooked politician taking the bribe money. It might be hard for me to hide considering I'm 6'5" and almost 275 pounds with a large Dr. J afro, but I'm tryin' hard to be invisible.

As we follow the huge trash trucks in our blue Volvo I feel about as undercover as O.J. Simpson at a Bronco dealership. Tiny asks me to try to be inconspicuous as we pass by the loud black and white trucks. As soon as we pass by the truck operator spots me. I guess it's the afro. But we run into our lonely recycler again doing his quiet efficient job at a new site. He doesn't even look up as we peer at him with our honed eyes. His round bearded face stares without emotion as he rapidly separates cans from bottles. Little did we know that this unassuming man would be the main player in the story that was going to unfold this early morning.

"In the month of June the company started to import strike breakers and train them on the trucks. They had them follow the drivers on their routes." said Chuck Mack Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Teamsters and Auto Truck Drivers, local No. 70. He was telling to what lengths Waste Management of Alameda had gone in preparation to lock out its 500 workers in the ongoing labor dispute covering Alameda County. Mack was quick to inform me that this "is not a strike, we are locked out" and "the company would not let our members work."

Going into the second week of the lockout trash and garbage is pilling up as poorly trained "replacement workers" miss many locations in poorer areas. The missed trash pickups have become a public health issue that various cities have addressed by taking Waste Management to court.

As I'm surveying the sickly mess, I remember the words that were screamed at the lonely recycler the morning of our secret mission, "Stop making a mess." What a mess has been made by Waste Management, who had no real plan to pick up trash after the lockout but seemed more intent on delivering a message to the union. I guess the old man who recycled the cans and bottles so efficiently wasn't such a nuisance after all.

Cities the size of San Francisco and Oakland create so much waste no one can handle it, so why are recyclers like the old man being criminalized for removing unwanted stuff? Why are cities being punished by companies that have beef with unions? Could the solution be to give these street corner recyclers, the ones who are so often looked down upon and publicly harassed, real rights like the ones of the big recycling companies?

My editor, myself and Bruce Allison, a poverty and disability scholar are therefore proposing, the Independent Recyclers as Subcontractors, a revolutionary solution to the harassment of these workers and the city's "waste management problems"

Independent Recyclers as Subcontractors

All independent recyclers should hold the same rights as all the major recycling companies. Recyclers should be able to obtain specialized vendor licenses that would allow them to sell their recyclable products without being harassed. Licenses should be available to them at city hall for no charge. These licenses do not need to be too complex, just a simple card with their name, address and photo should be sufficient. Two cross streets could be used as a valid address to obtain these licenses if the recycler is houseless. The licenses should also provide free medical care for the holder.

The minimal cost of this program to the cities who enroll would be offset by the millions of carbon footprints saved from the quality of work standards that would practiced by the independent recyclers as well as the drastic increase in recycled products actually being recycled, and the revenue that would come from that increase.

If a proposal such as this would be implemented, then maybe this whole big mess could be cleaned up once and for all.

Editors Note: The Editors and Scholars of POOR Magazine want to make sure that the community understand that in no way was this expose meant to disrespect or dismiss the very hard-working union workers who work for recylcing and waste management companies and belong to unions. Rather, this proposal and expose was written with the goal of achieving long deserved rights for the micro-business people who do recyling and are not recognized as workers, but rather criminalized for the work that they do. And that perhaps through this licensing/subcontract proposal could be an adjunct worker to the union laborer through a cooperative agreement in an increasingly waste conscious, globally warmed world