| | In the OC, it varies wildly by area. Irvine, the large perfectly regulated majority Chinese yuppie enclave, vigorously prosecutes dumpster divers by most reports, making it a misdemeanor, although the ubiquitous Mexicans with their stake bed trucks collecting cardboard are mostly ignored.
Santa Ana, the largest and most central OC city, which is about 90% Hispanic, and about 1/3 undocumented, has a pretty loose attitude, although there are signs of a crackdown in progress. Not only do the guys and gals on bicycles tend to leave a lot of trash scattered about, but also they destroy many usable CRT monitors, utterly ignorant of all the toxic exposure that tearing those things apart with a hammer or a brick creates for them and the surrounding area.
Typically, first some guy will do a quick sweep and cut the cords of every electronic appliance he finds in the dumpsters or set out by some business in the hopes that someone will cart it off. This effectively destroys any real possibility of actually using what are often perfectly good units, as the time and effort to solder a new VGA cord would not be worth the risk that the unit was non-functional to begin with.
The cord cutter makes a couple pennies for the copper, often burning the plastic off in a metal trash can, thereby adding yet more pollution to the lead and other toxins. Then, late at night, sometimes 2 or 3 AM, I will hear the repeated crashing as another bicycler systematically smashes the thing on the pavement, leaving little shards of glass and metal everywhere, in order to get at the little copper wires or pieces of aluminum.
Ultimately, the state pays out of taxpayer money to the tune of $10 or more, alledgedly, to clean up the mess that made perhaps 25 cents for the perps.
Note that I personally always check the local dumpsters - at least glancing at them - as I pass by coming or going from home, as there is still often good stuff, almost anything you can imagine, ending up in them, and many of my everyday clothes as well as TVs and other video or audio gear has come from that source.
A couple years ago I also discovered by shear accident that one local discount supermarket was throwing out literally tons of perfectly good food, such as 5 pound sealed cheeses, just because the sale date had run out. For several months, I spent virtually zero bucks on food and ate prime rib and pricey organic fruits and Norwegian cheeses, always careful to clean the wrappings thoroughly, etc. I figure that I saved $500.
Then the local freegan or homeless community discovered the dumpster and it became so popular that the supermarket started retaliating by pouring dye or icky powder over all the perfectly good food, and it was no longer worth the trouble to me. I offered to BUY the food from the market just before the dates ran out, as I would not have bought it at full price anyway, and they would have the money and I the food, but of course the manager had no authority to bypass corporate policy.
And of course, one general solution would be for people to sell old stuff instead of throwing it away. And, the Mexicans are far from loath to do just that. In fact, 15 years or so ago, the barrios were unbelievable wall-to-wall yard sales every single weekend, and the downtown merchants were dying because nobody was buying anything retail anymore.
But the City of Santa Ana is not run for the benefit of the Hispanic majority, but rather for the sole interests of a clique of ultra-wealthy, mostly Anglos, who own all the major business property. So, they passed a law against yard sales, initially outlawing them altogether, with a $500 fine attached. When that drew protest, despite the Mexican habit of simply accepting whatever the jefe tells them, they relented and allowed sales on four weekends per year.
This meant that everyone was trying to get rid of everything at the same time. The consequence was that prices went to near zero and the sales were no longer worthwhile, although a few hopeful souls persist. So now, the stuff that would be sold and resold, saving untold money and pollution, gets trashed and the dumpster divers are the beneficiaries and have proliferated until they have become a real nuisance and an environmental hazard as I discuss above.
All to protect the fascists running things, once again. Now they are apparently starting to react, however, busting the illegals living on the street, which costs the City again, as they cannot possibly pay any fine, and thus end up in jail, eating taxpayer financed food and getting free medical care. Simply allowing the yard sales again would fix the problem, but that is highly unlikely, about as unlikely as the market doing the rational thing of heavily discounting just before expiration.
(Edited by Phil Osborn on 9/06, 8:10pm)
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