The dark side of recycling: Metal thieves

[depakid]

Pickup trucks loaded down with stolen metal are becoming commonplace at area scrap yards,
as thieves swipe copper, brass and precious metals to sell for quick cash.
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When James Sharrow and Chad Guild pulled up to Rivergate Metals in North Portland on March 13 to sell more than 50 pounds of brass lying in the bed of a truck, the crew at the scrap metal yard had no particular reason to be suspicious.

The pair wore hard hats and safety vests, and drove a full-size Ford F-350 truck with decals from an excavating company in Vancouver, Wash. Their story — that the brass was left over from a job site — sounded plausible.

Over the next two weeks, Sharrow, 47, and Guild, 31, returned to Rivergate on nine occasions, hauling in nearly one and a half tons of brass.

Finally, on March 28, workers at Rivergate turned the pair away after receiving a tip from the Portland Police Bureau that a band of metal thieves had found a lucrative new target: fire department connections (FDCs), the chunky brass fittings used by firefighters to connect their hoses to the internal sprinkler systems of commercial buildings.

<snip>

It’s difficult to assess the damage caused by the thefts, but Malanaphy reckons that $30,000 would be a lowball estimate — and it doesn’t take into account the possibility that a missing FDC could cripple firefighters in the event of a blaze.

The pair’s profit from reselling the brass? About $3,000.

Welcome to the dark side of recycling. For years, the mantra of sustainable waste management has been, reduce, reuse, recycle. Now, light-fingered opportunists have come up with a new twist on the old slogan: Remove, resell, repeat.

“They steal the wires out of message boards, light poles, and pretty much anything that isn’t bolted down,” says Oregon Department of Transportation spokeswoman Christine Miles. “Five years ago it (metal theft) wasn’t even on our radar, but since this time last year we’ve easily spent over half a million dollars on it.”

More: http://www.portlandtribune.com/sustainable/story.php?story_id=121078389499281700

[CanonRay]

1. They just caught two guys in Colorado Springs,

stipping copper wire from telephone pole grounds. This means if lightning hits that pole, it could travel down the wire instead, and into a phone in somebody's home. No joking matter at all.

[depakid]

2. Manhole covers are also big targets these days.

Long Beach officials say about 50 of the 150-pound iron lids have been stolen in the last eight months.

So far, the stolen covers have been promptly reported to officials and replaced. But two motorists whose cars were damaged when they accidentally hit an open manhole have filed claims with the city. The openings, typically 20 to 24 inches wide, lead to below-ground chambers that are 6 to 8 feet deep.

The thieves aren't only leaving holes in the street, they're also leaving a growing hole in municipal utilities' budgets.

The covers fetch about $10 apiece when sold to metal recycling companies -- they're often hidden in loads of other scrap metal -- but they can cost up to $500 each to replace.

<snip>

A flourishing market for recycled metals in China and other developing nations and the soaring price of metal worldwide are blamed for triggering what has been described as a rash of manhole cover thefts.

An industrial area of East London had 200 covers and grates stolen in one brief period. An estimated 20,000 covers are stolen every year in Beijing. About 10,000 were stolen in Bogota, Colombia, until a 6-year-old boy was killed in late 2005 when he fell into an open manhole and a crackdown on the thievery was launched.

In this country, the scale of the theft is lower, but still troublesome. Chicago lost 200 in November, with 40 reportedly taken in a single day. About 500 disappeared last year from Philadelphia. Seventy-five lids have turned up missing in Greensboro, N.C. The arrest of an Indianapolis man ended a cover theft spree there that left more than 30 missing in late January.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-manhole6-2008may06,0,3724024.story

[Warpy]

3. They were stealing the telephone cable, itself

in south central New Mexico, leaving people without phone service for days while the phone company tracked down the problem and replaced the cable.

I don't know if they ever caught those scumbags or if they moved on to stripping wiring and plumbing from houses with foreclosure notices in the windows.