By Ted Slowik
Well, moving day is here. Readers of this forum will know that my family is taking advantage of the great deals out there in today's real estate market, and are fortunate enough to have sold our home. I'm out of the office until Aug. 5 while we make the transition.
I'll leave you for a time with this observation: Cleaning out our home and garage, we've done a lot of purging. You accumulate a lot of stuff in your life, and moving is a great opportunity to go through it and say, "You know, I'm never going to fix this broken lamp, or use this spare lawnmower." We had a big garage sale, and gave a lot of clothes to Goodwill. Whatever furniture was left, we put out a sign that said, "Free for the taking," went to a movie, and it was gone when we returned.
Whatever goods we haven't given away we've placed out with the trash. Here in Joliet, there are a multitude of junk scavengers. I swear, that spare lawn mower wasn't out for five minutes before one of those precariously loaded pickups stopped and someone grabbed it. These days, all metal is precious, apparently.
I wonder, does Naperville have these junk scavengers, too? What do you think of them? I believe Joliet has tried to regulate them. I don't mind the notion that someone would take scrap metal and sell it to a junkyard. It's recycling, in my opinion. My only concern is the safety of these vehicles. Junk dealers presumably are not wealthy individuals, so it's understandable that they're not driving around in late model Ford F250s. But when the bicycle rims and old appliances are teetering off the sides of whatever truck they're driving, I worry.
Share your thoughts on this topic. I'll talk to you again on Aug. 5, but my colleagues will keep the forum going during my absence.
Of course we have garbage scavengers... What town doesn't? In fact, most people are aware of this and will even place items on the curb a couple days before the trash is to be collected in the event that someone would like to collect the items. I am not opposed to this as long as the timeframe is reasonable. So, if the trash is to be collected on Monday, putting the items out on Saturday would be as far away from the pick-up day that I personally would deem reasonable. I do get annoyed, however, when neighbors put out random items on the curb almost a week before it will be collected again... That just makes the neighborhood look like a junk yard! Not all items get picked up right away, so I don't like all the items sitting there for days on end.
It is not the items left for scavengers that truly bother me, though. I get upset at the fact that we have several neighbors who have left out large trash items that cannot be picked up by the waste management company. These people either need to pay to have it hauled away or they need to get a dumpster rented, etc. to take care of the trash. For some reason, over the past few weeks, there have been more and more homes with random trash sitting on the curb for weeks and weeks with no end in sight. What is the deal with this? I should not see mounds of carpet rolls, cement debris, torn-up baskbetball hoops, etc. sitting on the curb for a month. People need to deal with their trash in a timely fashion. If it is not picked up, then figure out another solution! Don't turn our neighborhoods into landfills!
I put my recycle bins out the morning of pick up. I did this not to thwart the scavengers, but because if it was windy or stormy the night before, recycleables would be scattered down the street by morning.
Once I got a sticker on my recycle bins from the city stating that bins needed to be put out the night before. The city must know they're losing money on recycleable cans to scavengers by having bins put out over night, but that's the way they want it. I've seen scavengers collecting items left on the curb, like furniture and household items, but I've yet to see them go thru garbage containers. If I saw them pulling bags out of my container, I'd tell them to get out of my garbage! That is nasty.
I ignored the stickers left on the bins and continue to put out recycleables the morning of. They always get picked up, and as far as I can tell, everything's still there when they are.
Catalytic converters, siding and pothole covers are "recycled"...
Where is Brenda Avalong to save us from the scourge of these low life denizens of Scrap City? Surely, having scavengers in her neighborhood must be as evil as having laundry out on a clothes line.
For the most part, I don't care. Lately, however, they have also been taking aluminum cans from my recycle bin in the middle of the night.
First of all, this is not a quiet thing. Secondly, I'm not sure how Naperville handles the recycling but in other cities the items in the recycling bin is actually considered city property as whatever money the scrap brings in helps pay for the pick-up bill.
Just a thought.
T.B.
Blah, blah, blah. Oh, so happy to to have "them" take it and recycle it. Whatever. These scavengers troll our hood the night before and day of each and every garbage day. They take all of our cans that have been sorted to recycle (doesn't the city use that recycle $ to offset our cost of trash pick-up?), they argue with each other on who gets what, they pull bags out of our cans just make sure a big treasure isn't missed. Hope no one forgets to shred important documents, "they" don't just troll for that precious metal, you know. Very non-PC, but I don't care. It's the truth the way I see it. Let the hatred begin.
They come through our neighborhood every Monday night. They are very methodical, unobtrusive and extremely polite and decent folk. I applaud their resourcefulness in being able to put to use that which I deemed to be non useful even if they simply convert it straight to cash. More power to them.
Same as all the above. If they want to take it and recycle it, they're doing a service for us and the earth. Thank you!
The 10 years we have been in S. Napervile, we have seen the scavengers. I welcome them. As far as stuff, teetering off of the edge of the truck. I haven't read any articles in the sun or on the news about trash spewed down a street do to an over packed junk truck.
Everyone should have the right to make a living. One man's garbage is anothers treasure. Who cares!
Exactly, who cares? They can pick whatever they want, as long as they don't bring it back!
The junk scavengers seem to know which neighborhood's garbage is picked up on which day and they typically troll the subdivisions the night before. Good for them. Keep useable/salvageable stuff out the the landfills. About a year ago I also started "freecycling" and "freesourcing". These are groups on yahoo where individuals offer items to other members (there's not cost) for free. That way this stuff is saved from the landfills and can go to someone who will put it to use. I even "curbcycle" useable items from my neighbors garbage. I pulled out a perfectly good mission-style end table a few weeks back that a neighbor had put out. I posted it on freecycle and it was re-homed.
Please consider this option for the environment next time you're putting out perfectly good/slightly damaged items.
Yes, they scavenge in Naperville, I have seen them. Naperville residents' garbage isn't any more or less desirable than other people's in other towns.
And who cares what they're doing with it? Aren't you just throwing it away? For heaven's sake, who cares?