Bottle pickers raiding blue carts

Calgary police are hearing complaints that bottle pickers are raiding blue recycling carts, digging around for refundable containers.

Const. John Kastamonitis, a community liaison officer for District 3, said he has received a handful of complaints about bottle pickers leaving recycling in alleys and in three cases, getting into verbal confrontations with homeowners.

"The number keeps increasing as these people discover that there is money to be made," he said. "We don't anyone to be hurt. These individuals could be unpredictable and the smallest thing could set them off."

Kastamonitis said bottle pickers can be charged with trespassing if they're on someone's property, but if they are in the alley there is not much police can do.

'It's driving me crazy'

Brentwood resident Louise Wilkenson said bottle pickers are going though her blue cart in the alley, even though she doesn't put refundable items inside. She said she can hear the sound of shopping carts on the gravel and people going through her blue cart from her home's bedrooms.

"It's driving me crazy," she said. "They unload it into the back alley and so every morning I have to go out and pick up my recycling and put it back in."

Melinda Hatfield, who also lives in Brentwood, said she isn't concerned about bottle pickers, as along as they are respectful and don't make a mess.

"Personally I think if [homeowners] are releasing their refundables into their blue bins then they're not interested in returning them. And so for someone else who maybe is less advantaged to be able to take advantage of that source of income — as long as they are respectful to the property and the people — then I am not that concerned."

Bottle pickers are making more money than ever since the province raised the deposit on bottles and slapped a new deposit on milk containers: 10 cents on anything under one litre, and 25 cents on everything over a litre.

However, bottle picker Grant Hergott said, the city's switch to curbside recycling pickup has increased the competition among bottle pickers.

"A lot more people are recycling and a lot more people are picking," he said.

Blue cart recycling has already started in south and northwest Calgary and will begin on June 30 in the northeast.