SAN FRANCISCO -- A recycling war is breaking out on the Bay Area's curbsides.Those ubiquitous, colorful recycling bins set out each week for pickup stand on a battle line between growing numbers of organized crews who snag cans and bottles and the official waste haulers who say "poachers" are increasingly hostile and dangerous.Caught in the crossfire are residents. Reports about noise, litter and trespassing have risen so dramatically in the past couple of years that a state lawmaker has written a bill that would make it illegal for recycling centers and salvage yards to buy goods totaling $50 or more without asking for identification and paying by check. "Ten years ago, you'd see homeless people or a little old grandma going through the garbage and putting cans into a bag to get a couple dollars," said San Francisco Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, who introduced the recycling theft bill. "But now it's more organized, no one is enforcing (theft laws), and it's a way to generate cash."For those on the economic fringe, however, the recycled goods can bring in needed cash amid a faltering economy, a shortage of jobs and the soaring costs of food, gas and rent. Prices for aluminum run more than $3,700 per ton, glass $210, plastic $180 and cardboard $130, according to Sunset Scavenger, a division of giant Norcal Waste Systems Inc.Typically, recycling theft works like this: Small groups converge on a neighborhood on the night before the regular weekly trash and recycling pickup. Runners go from bin to bin, gathering glass bottles, plastic and aluminum, which are thrown into a pickup truck -- often rickety and modified with tall wooden boards to carry bigger loads. When the truck is filled, the drivers take the cargo to a recycling center or scrap yard.In some instances, the recycling crews have unwritten agreements with commercial businesses such as restaurants or produce markets to collect their bottles or cardboard.San Francisco residents say they know when the recycling bandits are on the march when they see tipped-over cans and litter strewn on the ground and hear clanks of bottles and cans at 3 a.m. One waste company says it has received 20,000 complaints of curbside recycling theft in San Francisco. "One day, I saw six or seven people going through the trash," said Jo Cangelosi, who puts her recycling out at the very last minute -- when she can hear the truck rumbling down the road. "It was ridiculous. They started at 4 o'clock, and they went that night and until the next morning."Cangelosi, who worries not just about noise and litter but also the potential for identity theft, has gone so far as to confront some of the scavengers."Lately, it's gotten a lot more aggressive," she said.Recycling theft is illegal. As soon as customers put their beer bottles and soda cans in the recycling bin of the city-authorized firm and take it to the curb, those recyclables becomes the waste company's property. In San Francisco, fines for stealing recyclables run from $20 to $500 and can result in up to six months' imprisonment. In Union City, the fines start at $100. It goes far beyond California. New York City approved legislation that increases the penalty for unlawfully removing or transporting recyclables from $100 to $2,000 for first-time offenders and $5,000 for repeat offenders. The city can also impound vehicles involved in the theft and can arrest those who receive stolen recyclables.(E-mail Kelly Zito at kzito(at)sfchronicle.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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