Paper Thieves Bedevil Upper East Side

While Manhattan residents read literally tons of sophisticated papers and magazines, when bundled for recycling these publications are increasingly disappearing from city streets.

A City Council official said the Department of Sanitation is picking up as much as 25% less in recycling materials on the Upper East Side than it was last year, due at least in part to people who are stealing bundles and cashing them in with recyclers.

The chairman of the council's Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, Michael McMahon, a Democrat of Staten Island, introduced a bill last month to increase the fine to a minimum of $1,000 and to impound the vehicles of anyone illegally picking up recyclables in bulk and hauling them away. "It's an enormous problem," he said, adding that it was important to address because the paper and metal collected help pay for the city's recycling program. "The taxpayer loses," a vice president of the 13th precinct community council, Jon Schachter, said.

The counsel to the Sanitation and Solid Waste Management Committee for the council speaker's office, Carmen Cognetta, said the area comprising Community Board 8, which runs between 59th and 96th streets, had 25% less recyclable paper this April versus the previous year. Lesser declines also appeared among the areas of community boards 5, 6, and 7.

The commissioner of the sanitation department, John Doherty, spoke in favor of the legislation in testimony last month before the council's sanitation committee.

Mr. Schachter told The New York Sun that the sanitation department has issued too few summonses to scavengers removing bulk paper. A sanitation department spokeswoman said in a written statement that since last October, sanitation police have seen "an increase in reports of unmarked, out-of-state vans illegally picking up bundled newspapers and cardboard from buildings in Manhattan and Queens," and that the department has been receiving an average of two complaints each week. "In fact, since that time we have written a total of 20 summonses to drivers who were charged with ‘unauthorized removal of waste' punishable by a fine of $100," she said.

Not everyone is concerned about recyclable newspaper scavengers. A portfolio manager for the Free Enterprise Action Fund, Tom Borelli, told the Sun that if sanitation trucks finished their routes sooner, perhaps the department could use any cost savings to figure out a way to keep other parts of the city cleaner.

Concerning the general issue of recyclables, Mr. McMahon said, "One's man's trash is a city's treasure."