The recycling center at Church and Market which has been operating on the eastern corner of Safeway’s Market Street parcel for nearly three decades has been issued an eviction notice.
According to the Haighteration report and Safeway spokesperson Wendy Gutsall, the reason for the eviction is twofold: “First, the widespread availability of curbside recycling makes such a facility obsolete, and second, the facility has a negative impact on customers and neighbors.”
Community Recyclers has been ordered to vacate the Upper Market site which is right across the street from the LINEA and 2001 Market Street developments by September 6.
UPDATE: The recycling center in Safeway’s Webster Street lot isn’t being evicted as well, it’s gone.
Great news, less homeless in the Safeway parking lots asking for money…
Great news! This recycling center serves no function apart from inciting theft of recyclables from people’s bins. This then goes into funding someone’s addiction. Food, shelter, healthcare, cell phones are already paid for in SF, except for people who refuse it for whatever personal reason.
I remember when Safeway underwent a major remodeling in the early 90’s. Back then I wondered why the recycling center wasn’t being evicted – it was and has continued to be a source of unending blight for all these years. This is coming not a moment too soon.
Oh man that is awesome! There’s no point in these anymore in SF as curbside recycling is perfectly sufficient. We should also repeal the CRV on bottles and cans for the same reason.
Scott Wiener for Mayor.
Good riddance.
“There’s no point in these anymore in SF as curbside recycling is perfectly sufficient. We should also repeal the CRV on bottles and cans for the same reason.”
YES YES YES !!! I hope they shutdown the ones on Bayshore too.
I have nothing important to add…but YAY!!!!!
Love it! “the times, they are a changin’…”
Score one for the civilized people.
would love to see that lot built out as place-holder one story commercial.
“inciting theft of recyclables from people’s bins”
Sweet Jesus, you people are over the line. Yes people scavenge my recycled items. Yes, it occasionally causes a mess.
What do you think the recyclers are going to do if not collect cans? Start an artisanal skinny jean jean shop with no more than 2 locations? Make an app to locate triangulate every twenty something douchebag in a Prius?
They are laboring to respond to legal economic incentives.
Scavenging your cast-offs is honest work. You should respect the effort.
It’s not scavenging, it’s theft. Scavenging would be finding it lying on the street or the like. Taking it out of recycling bins is theft. Then the money received is often spent on drugs and alcohol.
Personally I have no interest in subsidizing theft or drugs use.
@SM
Except that it’s stealing. Who do you think pays in the end? I do when Recology raises my rates.
These are people being taken advantage of by larger enterprises paying them little to do all the work. This isn’t the guy down on his luck digging through for a few cans and bottles trying to scape together enough for a burger.
Relax soccermom. Your holier than thou is showing a bit much today.
Read the other posts. Overwhelmingly, we ALL agree this is a good thing to close down this ugly recycling dump.
I have these scavengers dump over my blue bin at 3am, scattering trash everywhere. I have had them threaten me because I CAUGHT THEM. They have attempted to call their scavenging a “lifestyle” when it’s nothing more than stealing.
Good riddance. Let’s see this triangle piece of land turned into some retail and/or quality condos.
Awesome. All recycling centers in the city should be closed.
And there we go.
The same people who spend two days twisting themselves into knots to convince one another that 150K or 275K or 450K or whatever number you want isn’t enough to be ‘middle class’ or ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’ are going to stand there and call the people at the absolute bottom of the social structure thieves for taking the cans they no longer want or need to a recycling center.
What a bunch of entitled clowns.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything sm, doesn’t really matter to me what you think.
But I’m not really clear on how the difference between wealthy and middle class has relevance to this topic.
You want to call taking other people’s property honest work, but most people consider that to be theft, and you belittle those who disagree with you. Seems like you are the one trying to convince people of something.
The recycling thieves out in the Sunset are very organized. There is a certain turf each of them works, yet they are brazen as they trespass on private property to collect their “wages” (nod to soccermom). Love to hear the jingle jangle of my locked front gate when they try to gain access to my precious blue bin in my breezeway. Even if they managed to open the gate my power hose is ready on “high.” See, soccermom, my partner and I work very hard to rent our home in the Sunset. We pay a lot for our garbage and recycling services, both of which are going up again soon, thanks in part to theft of recyclables. The less the center receives, the less money it makes and the center transfers the cost of operation to its customers. Business 101.
The current status quo is: provide housing through care-not-cash, have not-for-profits provide food or emergency shelter, have the city provide healthcare and other services for free. Did I mention cell phones? And they’ll get their booze money with recyclables.
This well-oiled machine is quietly humming while the population that stupidly follow the rules (get clean, get a job, work hard, pay for everything you use, pay your taxes) is fuming.
Well, no more booze money. A good first step.
You see; Soccermom won’t address the FACT this issue is really about stealing, pushing stolen shopping carts around our neighborhoods at all hours and physically threatening and hassling those of us who will not allow them to steal.
These thieves do nothing but find funding for their drugs and alcohol. There are programs to help them, when they make that choice.
There is a god.
Soccermom I couldn’t agree more – these are a bunch of whiny ‘holier than thou’ (RIGHT ‘Futurist’ {haha}??) navel gazers constantly going off topic to worry over the right placement of a door for godsakes! Until they get to spew against the Great Evil of being homeless. Go right ahead & start hitting me with your nasty replies as I’m sure you will. Get.a.Life. ALL of you disgusting ‘people’
@soccermom & sfjohn
You guys are welcome to your opinion, but you might be more effective if you didn’t insult those who disagree with you.
Now if we can just get Safeway to “evict” that big ugly sign of theirs. Also, YAY for no more dripping, stinking, staining bags of garbage (recyclables) being thrown around on public transportation.
I have been posting as mark.I am not the mark
that posted above. I will change my name to markk
Dear sfjohn:
You sound a bit, shall we say, angry today. It’s ok, relax, go to Starbucks, get some tea and you’ll be fine.
Sorry, but I lost you at the “right placement of a door” comment. Can’t seem to find that relevance in this thread today.
Have a wonderful day of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.
While the focus may be on the Market St Safeway (and I am delighted this one is going because it means fewer smelly bums with smellier bags of cans and bottles on the F line), I assume this also means the recycle center at the Webster St. Safeway will be cleared out providing the same benefits (fewer homeless wandering the parking lots, more parking spaces).
[Editor’s Note: As reported above: “Safeway will be evicting the recycling center from the lot of their Webster Street location as well.”]
I do wonder if bottles and cans taken by hand to a depot arrive better sorted and in better reusable condition. Bottles especially get broken in the curbside bins.
I think that a person who makes $150K/$275K/whatever per year and cannot empathize with other people scrounging for a few dollars recycling cans, lacks an essential amount of humanity in her perspectives on life.
We are not all dealt the same hands and we do not all have the same opportunities. Granted, not everyone takes full advantage of all their opportunities, but if a person has gotten to the point that they are working, collecting cast-offs from better-off people, (not begging, not stealing, but taking cans and bottles that other people are discarding) and the best an observer can do is worry about the 0.whatever percent such a loss might imply for a monthly garbage bill, that observer is a sad case indeed.
^the problem soccermom, is that they ARE stealing. SFPD has twice come and arrested someone on our street for stealing out of recycling bins. In the eyes of the police, taking something out of the recycling bin is the exact same as taking something out of a house.
With the Whole Foods opening across the street, I guess Safeway has to start thinking about the quality of customer experience at the notoriously unpleasant (though epic for people watching) Market Street Safeway…
A man works hard for his trash only to have vagrants come and steal it.
Soccermom’s argument is weak and misguided on several points.
So someone making (as she says) $150/275k has no empathy for others of lower income? Why the income connection at all. No relevance. So someone making $55k has empathy? or more? makes zero sense. There are people of all income strata will ALL levels of humanity and non-humanity.
Soccermom, you are simply type-casting.
And no they are not “collecting”. This isn’t about Beany Babies or Star Wars toys.
This is solely about stealing, harassing and threatening.
It’s not some down on their luck ne’er–do–well rummaging for enough to buy a meal. It’s a huge syndicate that take advantage of the addicts by paying them less than the value of the bottles/cans to steal from the bins. Those huge trucks full of cans parked outside this center – where do you think all of that came from?
Care not cash means no more money to buy drugs/booze so this is what they do. It’s part of a problem not a solution.
I understand the Market St. Safeway has one of the highest shoplifitng rates of any store in the chain. I wonder if that could have been a factor in Safeway’s decision?
I’m with soccermom 100%. But unfortunately seems like most people on this site find poor people really annoying and bothersome, would love to marginalize them as drunks and drug addicts and would prefer to never see them in their neighborhoods for fear of property prices declining. In the good old days, these people would move to the suburbs – now they move here! Danville has great weather!
Organized crime syndicates? I see a decent number of older asian women and hispanic wife/husband combos where I live. Resist your urge to criminalize the poor – its not very becoming of a great city.
And find some humility in the fact that becasue these scrappers weren’t handed some property or college education by their parents, that they’re a whole lot grittier and “scrappier” than you’ll ever be and if the rules weren’t rigged, and it came down to it, really was reduced to a fair fight – they’d have the Victorian and you’d be crying yourself to sleep at night in the park.
@soccermom
Yes, stealing, soccermom. Also breaking and entering, also assaulting people. Not all of them, but enough.
It’s not empathy to overlook criminal activity and assist somebody to continue to degrade themselves and those around them. These people are not just down on their luck, they have chosen to throw their lives away, which is especially sad in a city like SF that has ample opportunities for those that want to help themselves.
Giving them the scraps of society is not the same as actually helping them, it only hurts them as far as I’m concerned. These people need serious help, giving them a few bottles and cans doesn’t help them do anything but get their next fix, you might as well just trade the cans for syringes or pipes and save them the time of taking the money to their dealer.
If you think empathy is pretending that what they are doing is not harmful to themselves and society, well like I said you are welcome to your opinion.
Oh, and ten years ago I was making about $20K a year, sometimes less. My opinion is no different today than it was back then.
This is clearly a heated topic on this page, but clearly not all who utilize such recycling centers are using the proceeds for booze nor are all “stealing” discarded cans and bottles. Some recyclers are bringing their own containers in for redemption. Others find such containers littered about in parks, on sidewalks, and in the gutter. As a child, I was partly motivated to recycle (and clean up litter) due to its financial reward. Also relevant to the discussion, such container redemption centers are mandated by the legislation that created the CRV (I believe). Who am I to judge the father with his young son or the elderly woman who collect cans and bottles on our street?
If you really think your recycling is your valuable personal material, why do you put it out in a bin by the curb?
Trash in my garbage can outside is not the same as a laptop on my desk. That’s absurd.
Implicitly, there must have been a huge drop in crime in India when Mumbai finally installed a sewer. The untouchables stopped stealing everyone’s sh*t.
I see a lot of sober elderly people rummaging through city trashbins for recyclables these days. Not everyone is robbing recycle bins to fund their drug/alcohol habit.
That being said, I am very glad this place is closing up. I’ve seen WAY too many leaking bags of putrefying trash on the MUNI buses and rail lines that serve the area.
@obro
Have you ever been by the recycling center? It sure doesn’t sound like it. It’s not a cross section of the hardworking poor people trying to better themselves. It’s almost entirely drug addicts and alcoholics. You can barely ever walk by there without seeing at least one person passed out on the sidewalk.
And just so you know, there’s a difference between poor people and drug addicted derelicts.
People defending the people rummaging through garbage bins seem to collectively not comprehend that this is illegal. Anything placed in the recycling and garbage bins is property of Recology.
Recology bases the rates we all pay on an expectation of a certain amount of recycling that will be profit for them. When people take anything out of the bins they are stealing.
I have no problem with people collecting their own cans and bottles and taking those to a center for recycling. I have no problem with people picking cans up off the street. But taking them from the bins is stealing.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Recycling-bins-are-targets-for-thieves-4162587.php
good riddance
SM is really making my day. So much better reading her wacked out comments and warped definition of theft than researching the worldwide semiconductor application market by vertical.
SM: we are required to use bins on our property. I wouldn’t go so far as to label it valuable, but you nailed it on the head by saying it’s “personal material.” Elaborating on your definition, I don’t care if I put gravel, suet or my Barbie doll head collection in my bin (read: MY bin). If someone takes it from my property then it’s theft. Sounds like someone stole your senses a long time ago with your cans and bottles.
@Moz: in my neighborhood we have the elderly Chinese ransacking the bins. It’s an extremely organized group too most likely not funding their drug or booze habits. If the money they collect is used for food and basic necessities then I certainly feel bad for them to resort to this, but theft is still theft be it a buck out of your mother’s purse or billions from investors.
Soccermom – please consider opening a recycling center in your home. You seem to have a great compassion for the scavengers so you should step up and provide them with the help you believe they need. Good luck to you and may your fictional deity bless you.
obro,
Just a few months ago, a Castro resident nearby who was trying to defend his turf against a homeless guy got beaten up really bad. Where were the homeless advocates? Sobbing for the poor soul sleeping outside? Probably.
This is a matter of safety, pure and simple. People in the streets might be down on their luck, but there are structures to welcome them. If they are not in these structures, there’s usually an issue of violence, addiction, or plain stupidity.
In no way do you want this in a residential neighborhood. This is a question of personal safety.
@obro: let’s see, my parents never handed me property nor did they fund my education. I also lived on the streets when they tossed me out for my sexuality. I’m proud to say that I’m plenty gritty and scrappy. I don’t own a Victorian and I slept on many a park bench during cold Buffalo winters when I was 20. Yet I am in complete disagreement with you.
Rather than have you generalize that anyone who disagrees with you is a member of a disinterested entitled group, I’d like to know how you are involved with helping these down-and-out unfortunate souls.
@soccermom
By your logic it would have been good to keep Mumbai with no sewers since the untouchables were making their income from them not being there.
Closing the recycling center is like installing sewers: it cleans up the city.
@Mark
So let me get this right, at 11:59 you said Even if they managed to open the gate my power hose is ready on “high.” . And that’s in case you face a horde of elderly Chinese.
Here’s another idea: Say hello. Smile. Say, “It’s okay, go ahead.” They will be respectful. They will be nice. They will keep you bin tidy. I promise.
I think the anger over this is because the costs to society of people raiding recycling bins is far higher than the money they make – especially since many here perceive that they are already paying a lot so that people don’t have to engage in such activities.
Claiming that taking cans is theft is actually a stretch. It’s far more akin to vandalism (and in some cases involves trespassing) or maybe breaking a car window to take sunglasses. Most people don’t care about the sunglasses, it’s the 500 dollar repair and cleaning bill that is the real problem.
No one wants to ride a muni train that smells like a garbage dump (as the T frequently does). It makes everyone (rich and poor) who doesn’t like the smell of trash reconsider taking public transit.
For some reason this city is very good at incentivising people towards more “civilized” behaviors, but we are not good at the stick – making it known when the boundaries of a civilized society have been broken. We will provide toilets, but that means you can’t crap in front of my apartment every morning. We will provide money, but that means that our civic infrastructure is to be kept clean and we don’t have to worry about someone making a racket with aluminum cans at 3am.
Agreed – a crime is a crime.
But now recology is the victim?
How do you feel about Recology’s 80 year Monopoly on refuse collection in San Francisco? That’s the crime! No bid contracts! The fact that these capitalists are able to use the SFPD as their private security force is the real crime (but hardly unprecedented).
Let’s call a crime a crime here, and not criminalize the collectors of cans. If they gang together and collect 1000 cans – the syndicate collects $50 bucks… And when Recology raises your rates $5 bucks – you do the math.
And sorry for lumping all people who disagree with me into a single group. Lame, we are all entitled to our opinions shaped by life experiences.
To switch to a less controversial subject:
Why not create a “parklet” in that space? With the Whole
Foods across the way, it would be nice – and much used –
if there was some outdoor seating and plantings.
Get Whole Foods and Safeway to sponsor the creation
and maintenance, not the city. If it’s Safeway’s land, they
could do it easily.
Soccermom probably lives in an area that is not affected by this issue, probably the old recycling ladies zone.
The flats like the Castro have all the lazies and the bums who then clog the sidewalks starting 11PM. The shopping cart line is a reality in SF.
Want to have an out-of-this-world experience? Walk on Market from Duboce to Castro on the south side at 1AM.
Soccermom, please humor us and let us know how it went. My wife absolutely hated the harassment, the looks, the vibe of pending danger. It was the Walking Dead, downtown Atlanta episode.
Thanks, SoccerMom, for telling me how I should greet an intruder or trespasser. I’m sure that logic will get you elected as president of your neighborhood watch committee.
Now back to reality…
The one on Webster closing will be an inconvience for us. We actually save all of our redeemable recycling there. The money from the recycling spends just as well as money from other sources.
Jlasf has a point. Let’s move on from the back and forth exchange about theft and figure out how best to use this new space.
I’m not sure Safeway will be warm to front the cost for maintenance of a parklet. More likely they will add parking spaces. However, it will be interesting to hear from Safeway what the plan is once the recycling area is cleaned out.
@obro
Recology is not the victim because they just pass the cost on to the subscribers, us.
While the theft is an issue, it’s the least of my concerns. The bigger issues are the filth caused by the recycling thieves, as well as the more serious crimes, such as the assault described above, drug dealing, and gang activity, which are much more harmful than the simple theft.
If it were just little old ladies doing it during the day it wouldn’t bother me much, and in fact I only put my recycle bin out in the morning because there is a lady that comes then, while at night it’s exclusively addicts in my neighborhood.
“It’s not empathy to overlook criminal activity ”
“collectively not comprehend that this is illegal.”
Wasn’t someone on here the other day bragging that their fortune was being built by doing airbnb short term rentals? Isn’t that illegal?
Why get high and mighty about the law just for some guys taking cans from your blue bin?
A sane poor person isn’t going to attack you over a can or bottle and the crazy ones will still be crazy even without a recycling center.
When living in Buena Vista Heights, I rather stupidly confronted a homeless guy rummaging through our black and blue bins for prescription medication. We did not really care if he got the pills, but my wife was concerned about our names being on the pill bottles, which we assumed would be distributed on the black market.
I learned from SFPD, who came to the scene, that (1) I should have left the guy alone (okay, duh), and (2) it is illegal to throw away prescription medicine.
“Closing the recycling center is like installing sewers: it cleans up the city.”
There where am I supposed to get my deposit back? I certainly do not want to be forced to turn it over to the city as a form of an additional tax. It’s my money and I want it back. It was passed as a way to encourage recycling and now it appears to be turning into some type of scheme to line the pockets of government and garbage haulers.
@Rillion
The answer to that issue would be to repeal CRV entirely, as it no longer serves a useful problem.
I’m sorry that you and other people who are honestly using the centers as they were intended to be used will be harmed by this, but I personally believe it is necessary.
anon3,
Airbnb is illegal? Do not confuse some politician’s wet dream with actual legislation.
They hate it because it threatens the holy grail of Supervisor vote counts: rent control. You just can’t touch rent control in this town, no matter how silly, unjust and destructive it has proven to be.
lol, airbnb rentals are often illegal in that they violate zoning rules and circumvent many of the systems set in place to assure that rentals (even short term rentals) are up to certain codes.
The last thing we need is another parklet: read hangout for bums and drug addicts at this location.
Build retail/condos/commercial at this site.
I hope we are beginning to see the tide turn in this city that has far too many homeless, drug addicts and bums. As responsible, hard working, tax paying property owners and renters, we simply want a safer, cleaner, more civil city to live.
The closing of this recycling center is one small step toward that goal.
^^ I thought the hotel lobby was also against Airbnb because it does not collect hotel taxes and undermines their business.
@ Mark
Costs of maintenance could be shared with the Starbucks, Whole Foods, Safeway, and isn’t there a new building going up on the
opposite corner?
It’s in their interest to have a view of a park and not a parking lot.
Airbnb rentals may be illegal depending on how it is done. Any rental in SF under 30 days, except by a hotel of course, is illegal. But one could rent for 30 days or more via airbnb and be perfectly withing the law.
The important thing is that even though renting for less than 30 days may be illegal, it is not criminal, nor is it immoral. Theft on the other hand is both criminal and immoral.
There are many things that are illegal that people do every day, in fact it’s very difficult for anybody do have a day in which they do not break some minor law.
But there is a big difference between illegal acts, and criminal / immoral acts.
People seriously… they are collecting cans and bottles, not illegally harvesting human organs. Turn down the poor bashing a couple of decibels.
@sjg
“they are collecting cans and bottles, not illegally…”
They are illegally collecting cans and bottles, often making a mess and occasionally threatening and harming people who attempt to intercede. Taking items from the containers left on the sidewalk is illegal. That is not up for discussion. If you don’t think it is illegal you are simply wrong.
Nobody is asking to cut off their heads. They are simply happy that closing these two facilities will hopefully reduce the number of people with incentives to collect the items from bins.
An unfortunate side effect is people that don’t steal from the bins will find it more difficult to recoup the fees they are charged when buying bottles and cans.
@sjg
You haven’t said anything new, and what you say is just as wrong as it was before.
Nobody is poor bashing, except perhaps your side since you all seem to think all poor people are stealing people’s garbage.
Folks on my side are happy to hear that an operation facilitating theft leading to drug use, and other associated crimes and anti-social behavior, is going to be shut down.
“But one could rent for 30 days or more via airbnb and be perfectly withing the law.”
Yeah and anyone renting for 30 days or more is subject to rent control. Avoiding rent control is the exact reason the poster gave for using airbnb.
So should we shut down an operation that facilitates theft of hotel tax and other associated crimes?
There’s no theft of hotel tax, as it’s not a hotel. If SF wants to legalize it, then they can tax it. But since it’s not legal, it would just be subject to income tax. If somebody failed to pay their income tax that would be tax evasion, but has nothing to do with airbnb, rent control, or renting for less than 30 days.
Nice try though.
@lyqwd
A blanket observation stereotyping people who recycle cans and bottles as drug addicted, anti-social criminals pretty much amounts to poor bashing. Unless you know of some over privileged trust fund brats making a killing in the can collecting racket
I have no “side” in this discussion. Just think its cans and bottles, not all that important
quick question for the ones scared of airbnb:
For instance, am I allowed to rent out the place that is my furnished primary residence and that I own for a few months while I am gone?
I am not taking the bread from anyone’s mouth. Not hotels, I am paying my income taxes. This is not a hotel. And I am more than willing to apply rent control laws for the 2 months I do airbnb. But when I come back, I will get back my keys, this is my place.
No need to overlegislate people’s lives to death.
Who said that all people that recycle bottles and cans are drug addicted? Not me, and I haven’t seen anybody say it in this posting.
You and others on your side try to equate pointing out the fact that many of the recycling thieves are drug addicts as being the same as all poor people are drug addicted. But that only makes you the one who believes all poor people are drug addicted recycling thieves.
To expand on Futurist’s point…this whole suburban Safeway complex should be bulldozed and replaced with something that’s more height and density appropriate for a city setting nestled between mass transit lines.
My concern about the parklet is that you’re replacing one homeless magnet for another, regardless of the vigilance of businesses in charge of maintenance.
@sjg: copper wiring is a hot commodity that people like to steal to make a buck. Should we look the other way on this too? After all, it’s just copper wire. I guess your tolerance level of theft is higher than mine. Someone with even a higher tolerance than yours will remind you of that when you whine that someone broke into your car or stole your bike or snatched your iPod on MUNI.
[Editor’s Note: Planning’s Conceptual Strategy For The Market Street Safeway Site.]
lyqwyd, 1:32 PM:
“Have you ever been by the recycling center? It sure doesn’t sound like it. It’s not a cross section of the hardworking poor people trying to better themselves. It’s almost entirely drug addicts and alcoholics. You can barely ever walk by there without seeing at least one person passed out on the sidewalk.”
@soccermom, thanks for the quote, your point?
@SM: “Have you ever been by the recycling center? It sure doesn’t sound like it. It’s not a cross section of the hardworking poor people trying to better themselves. It’s almost entirely drug addicts and alcoholics. You can barely ever walk by there without seeing at least one person passed out on the sidewalk.”
For the record Lyqwyd said “almost entirely” not “entirely.” Snap!
I have found out in my days in uber wealthy Santa Barbara that the most empathetic people regarding the homeless were people never exposed to the quality of life issues created by this population. They are mostly of the wealthiest spheres protected from this world, apart from the occasional “wash off your guilt with Champagne” fundraiser event.
In Santa Barbara some rich folks created a full service shelter close to the working class area. There was no reason to put them here in particular, except it’s an area never crossed by the good folks in Hope Ranch or Montecito. But they get nice front pages in the SB News Press when they get to visit their “bonnes oeuvres”.
Wow! This struck a nerve!
My own experience with the “collectors” in my neighborhood (the Mission) is that they very carefully go through the recyclable cart to fish out the bottles and cans. For the most part, they seem to want to be unobtrusive and polite. They are also VERY organized…as soon as the trash starts getting wheeled out, they are there. I have not experienced any of the obnoxious behavior that others report, although I don’t doubt that it exists. But there are clearly a wide variety of folks involved in this very marginal business.
I’m not happy about the state of things, but I’m not getting all hot and bothered about it either, for many of the reasons that soccermom articulates. This is about the mildest form of theft I can imagine….the “thieves” are taking something that I put out as trash, and that neither the city nor Recology spend any effort defending as valuable. And most (not all) the folks I see seem to be very poor but very hardworking and relatively polite.
That said, I completely understand that the system is broken, and it angers me that we collectively go to all this effort to separate our trash, and then Recology never collects all those bottles of cans, and we pay higher rates because of it. Recology seems to have little incentive to do anything about it (because they can pass it on to us), and the City doesn’t seem to do much either.
I can’t be angry at the individuals who take advantage of what amount to perverse market incentives. I can be angry at the system. And for that reason I’m more than happy to see the recycling center at Market and Dolores go.
In urban terms, the location is incredible, on a slight rise before Market descends to downtown, you can look straight down the street to the Ferry Building. With its acute angle at a point where two street grids come together, it is actually a great location for a little sliver of a park, taking advantage of the bike path, the Market Street Railway storage, the view of the Mint, the view of the foot of Dolores and the Bolivar statues. There’s no reason to worry particularly that this will be a homeless magnet once the recycling center moves out.
By all means tear down the Safeway and rebuild over much of the lot, but in my view it would be a lost opportunity to ever go all the way to the corner. This corner should be celebrated with some sort of urban landscape. Certainly something much more appropriate than a recycling bin!
@Mark
for the record I said “It’s not a cross section of the hardworking poor” Which is the exact opposite of what sjg is claiming.
curmudgeon,
Every neighborhood is different. In North Beach, it was all old Chinese ladies. Same for Noe in the hills. Somehow they are not afraid of the effort and I had the utmost respect for them when I was living in these neighborhoods.
In the Castro it’s the lazies who hang out around the Safeway or late at night higher up Market. Once in a while one of them blows a fuse and either bashes a resident silly, or puts a building on fire.
Remember the Castro fire from a few years back? Unchecked crazy homeless guy. And the guy who was almost killed on his doorstep because he dared to question the de-facto ownership of the sidewalk by the crazies. Are we waiting for an actual death to declare homelessness a threat to residents?
And yes, curmudgeon, there is plenty to worry about IF, once the recycling center moves out, that plot of land is left open, or worse turned into another useless “parklet”. They will congregate there, with their junk, their shopping carts, their drugs, their needles and their craziness. Many, not all of them, are aggressive and can be dangerous. Refer to comment above by lol, as well.
Some of the homeless/crazies have now taken over the Jane Warner park in The Castro. They will take over any place we citizens try to make nice, because no one will kick them out, god forbid, we trample on their “lifestyle”.
@curmudgeon
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
Regarding “I can’t be angry at the individuals who take advantage…”
I’m not angry at them either, I feel sorry for them and wish they could get the help they obviously need. I’m angry at the people like soccermom who think they are helping these people with the gift of their garbage, fight to create laws that facilitate their degredation, and get holier than thou towards those of us who would actually like to see SF made into a cleaner and safer city.
The theft may be mild, but it’s still theft on a big scale. Recology estimates they lose between $5 and $10 million per year. But as I mentioned above, the theft is the least of my concern. Much of the money received from the recycling theft gets funneled to drug gangs, which commit very severe crimes. In addition, the people using the drugs commonly later engage in numerous much worse crimes.
While some are polite, many are not, I, and many others, have been woken up in the middle of the night, and regularly have garbage strewn around in the morning. Some have been assaulted for the temerity to challenge the thieves.
If it wasn’t a serious problem to a lot of people I doubt there would be such heat on this topic.
I had a bet with myself about how long it would take futurist to trash any kind of open space idea. I lost…he was third commenter after me.
Futurist, I’m not necessarily advocating for a “parklet”, but I am advocating for some form of open space to celebrate a very distinctive urban location. As a highly trained and experienced design professional, I am surprised you don’t agree (snark).
In my view it could be very small…I just don’t want to see a building to the acute point of that triangle. That’s all.
You just described a parklet, curmudgeon.
And I didn’t trashy “any kind of open space”. If and when the very complex development of the Safeway site ever happens, and it could be many years, certainly I want to see open space as part of the overall architectural solution. And the Planning Code already mandates open space in many forms and iterations. You’re just jumping the gun when you already are worried about a building occupying that point of land.
Until then, I would rather not see that triangle of space become some sort of parklet or other open space. Mark my words, it will become a magnet for more homeless and drug addicts. Read again what I mentioned about Jane Warner plaza, and read about that “piece of junk” parklet that was demolished on Haight St.
No body cares about anybody. I remember a San Francisco where you could talk to people regardless of economic status and just be cool. THis class warfare unfortunately is here to stay.
parklets are stupid. its always freezing here. Nobody hangs out in the cold unless they don’t have any place else.
This place is definitely a magnet for nasty and I’ll be glad to see it gone. Though the people hanging out in front of Safeway last week were more the “gutterpunk with pit bull” style of street a**hole.
But man, after getting to the bottom of the thread I was rooting for soccermom. You don’t have to like the homeless, you don’t have to give them money. But you have to understand that there are downward spirals in this world that are very hard to escape, and there are people who are born in trouble for no fault of their own. Have some compassion, or at least have some class.
I look forward to returning the recyclables I paid a deposit on to Safeway.
I live in the neighborhood, and for years my kids have had friends and families keep bottles and cans for them which they then return to the center for money (which we paid for through the deposit). It has been great for them, has them actually do something for some money, interact with people they otherwise wouldn’t probably talk with etc. I will miss it.
I was recycling bottles and cans as a kid before CRV was passed. What I learned was it was a crap job that paid poorly. I’ve never seen a kid at the Safeway recycling center on market, and there’s plenty of ways to teach kids the value of labor without supporting theft and drug addiction.
I find it sad that there are people that equate compassion, class, empathy and humanity with being gracious enough to let people root through their garbage for just enough for their next fix.
My perspective is that if you had any of the above you would be doing a little more than pretending chronic theft and addiction are anything but serious social ills, that breed only worse.
But hey, we’ve all got our opinions.
You WILL be able to return the cans and bottles you paid a deposit on to Safeway, probably via “reverse vending machines” which will accept recyclables and dispense payment. Safeway (and soon, Whole Foods across the street, like every other large grocery store, is required to collect returned recyclables if there is not a nearby recycling center. Clearly this is the option they have chosen, for a variety of good reasons.
My hope is that the return mechanism will make it slow, cumbersome and impractical to return large volumes of cans and bottles. In other words, make it work for the normal person who might want to return a handful of recyclables when they do their shopping. Make it completely NOT work for the drug-addled recycling thief who is hoping to use Safeway to fence his/her stolen goods. Because if we want to stop the stealing, we have to remove as much as possible of the incentive for doing so.
Well, this is quite the thread.
I think curmudgeon has the most reasoned post. I (obviously) live in Bernal Heights. For the last 8 years, I have had the same “collector” taking my recycling. She is Asian, at least 70 years old, if not older. She wears a straw hat. I put out my recycling each Sunday night, and she works our block. I have often met her face to face, and she always thanks me. She doesn’t make a mess, nor is she noisy. I don’t begrudge her my garbage. In fact, I take care not to put my paper recycling on top of my cans and bottles, so she doesn’t have to work so hard. If I pay a higher garbage bill, I find that a small price to pay. Of course, our recycling center is on Bayshore near the freeway, so we don’t have the “drug users ruining my neighborhood” vibe. It’s already an industrial, non-neighborhoody place. I used to live in the Castro, for years. I also used to live south of Market, for years. I have a bit of a hard time with the tone that some are taking here. Unless you’ve been assaulted or your quality of life is truly harmed, directly, by someone taking your recycling, I don’t get it. Do those of you who argue against the underclass think that closing a recycling center will make them go away? Really? Like “omg, the recycling center closed, we better cross the bridge”?
The underclass will always be with us. I find this a rather humane way to provide them an income, however meager. And if drug users or violent people also do this, don’t delude yourself into thinking that closing a recycling center will make them go away. They will simply come to the recycling center on Bayshore. And I don’t necessarily mind that. If you close all the centers, perhaps they will become even more desperate. Then what? They will still be here.
I will reiterate curmudgeon’s sentiment:
“I’m not happy about the state of things, but I’m not getting all hot and bothered about it either, for many of the reasons that soccermom articulates. This is about the mildest form of theft I can imagine….the “thieves” are taking something that I put out as trash, and that neither the city nor Recology spend any effort defending as valuable. And most (not all) the folks I see seem to be very poor but very hardworking and relatively polite.
That said, I completely understand that the system is broken, and it angers me that we collectively go to all this effort to separate our trash, and then Recology never collects all those bottles of cans, and we pay higher rates because of it. Recology seems to have little incentive to do anything about it (because they can pass it on to us), and the City doesn’t seem to do much either.
I can’t be angry at the individuals who take advantage of what amount to perverse market incentives. I can be angry at the system. And for that reason I’m more than happy to see the recycling center at Market and Dolores go.”
It’s clear that very few people in this thread use those centers. I do. I use the one on Webster. Sure, some of the recyclers are homeless and/or drug addicts. Most are not. Many are recycling their own items to save money. Ever since the downturn of 2008, they have been in the majority. There are also some elderly ladies and a few cheapskates like myself.
‘You WILL be able to return the cans and bottles you paid a deposit on to Safeway, probably via “reverse vending machines” which will accept recyclables and dispense payment.’
The Webster location had one of those. It counted, sorted, and crushed items (not glass ones). It was quite convenient, if a bit sticky. It also broke. A lot.
One thing most people don’t realize is that you get the full value of the refund if you turn in a small number of items. Most of the homeless/addicts seemed to deal in volume and, as a result, got far less per can than household redeemers.
If you think SF recycling programs sucks, have you seen Oregon’s?
You have to drop the can or bottle one buy one into a vending type machine and wait till it reads the bar code. Bought some beer or soda in California or Washington, it gets rejected.
I always thought you hippies, in SF were a happy bunch. I guess not.
If you want to be outraged take a look what Recology is doing to your garbage bill.
Much as I’m cheering the demise of the recycling center, I’m sanguine about how it’ll affect the quality of life in the neighborhood. The closure of the recycling center in GG Park doesn’t seemed to have reduced the squalor along Stanyan one bit.
UPDATE: Recycling Center On Webster Isn’t Being Evicted, It’s Gone.
“Some of the homeless/crazies have now taken over the Jane Warner park in The Castro. They will take over any place we citizens try to make nice, because no one will kick them out, god forbid, we trample on their “lifestyle”.”
According to Wiener, the biggest threat in the Castro are nude guys hanging out on public benches.
@moz
Wiener actually stated that the biggest threat in the Castro are nude guys? Or is this more anti-Wiener hyperbole with no basis in fact?
Actions speak louder than words. The fact that nudity is now banned indicates that the issue was more important than “homeless/crazies” attacking people for recyclables or occupying neighborhood parks.
No, it just means the nudity issue was easy to deal with. Not many people in favor, while many were against public nudity. And the change was simple: ban public nudity.
Homelessness is not a simple issue to deal with.
The nudity ban may be in effect, but I don’t see it being enforced. I’ve walked by and thru Jane Warner plaza and still see naked guys hanging out.
Disgusting.
Excellent news, can’t happen soon enough!
the crv was implemented to encourage people to recycle. californians (particularly san franciscans) are avid recyclers now. time to repeal the crv.
The recycling center at the Market Street Safeway is still in action. Any more updates?
The team managing the Safeway recycling center is the same than the GGP one. It took forever for the eviction to happen because they used all the tricks in the book.
More at sfgate.
The most annoying thing is that we are all paying for the legal action, from both sides…
1 – The costs to enforce the eviction will most likely be footed by the tax payer
2 – The money used by the recycling center to fight off the eviction comes mostly from recyclables stolen from our bins. These missing recyclables are making Recology’s rates higher. Lower recycling rates was the way we would get our CRV back.
Anyone seen the last 2 Recology bills? Gggrrrr….
Just close it already.
Don’t support the closure of this recycling center. Please sign the petition to save this location: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/save-san-francisco-recycling
This is terrible news. Where am I supposed to redeem my CRV if this recycling center is closed? It is outrageous that Californians have become complacent in allowing the state to charge an additional fee on top of every beverage container that is sold then actually support the removal of facilities that refund this fee.
I redeem all my CRV charges out of the very principal that this is added cost to me on top of the purchase price + taxes. Do you know that CRV is actually taxed too? Tax on one 5 cent CRV is less than a penny so you don’t see a charge but a case of beer’s CRV will be taxed. The state will never give me that money back but I am for sure going to get my CRV back. That is the entire point of this additional “tax” to Californians. Either allow us to redeem our CRV or stop charging it in the first place.
The NexCycle machines being rolled out at Safeways are flawed: they break constantly requiring up to a week for service, only service one customer feeding one container at a time, have long lines because of the inefficiency in input, are actually closed on the weekends/Mondays (Mission Bay Safeway)