Bonanza for scavengers (lockout helps homeless recycle for $)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/14/MNGMKR0LJU1.DTL

Bonanza for scavengers
Trash is money: Those overflowing mounds of East Bay garbage, the result of the Teamsters lockout, prove to be a gold mine for pickers who eke out a living recycling cans, bottles, plastic

Lou Brown is benefiting big-time from the lockout of East Bay garbage workers.

Brown, who is 63 and homeless, recycles aluminum cans, plastic and glass to help make ends meet, and the piles of garbage on Oakland streets are proving to be a bonanza.

"You got more now. It makes me feel good because the trash is full," Brown said Friday near 46th Avenue and International Boulevard in East Oakland as he pushed a shopping cart loaded with bottles, aluminum cans and other junk that he turns in for cash at recycling centers.

He added, however, that he sympathized with residents who weren't getting their garbage picked up, "because a lot of it's thrown on the ground."

Brown will take whatever he can get, whether it's cans thrown on the ground or wedged in trash bins belonging to residents who are no longer separating garbage from recyclables as the Waste Management Inc. lockout of 500 Teamsters union drivers drags into its 13th day.

The company maintains it has restored regular weekday trash pickups to its 200,000 customers in Oakland, nine other cities and unincorporated areas of Alameda County. Piles of overflowing trash bags and bitter complaints from many customers, however, belie the company's claim.

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