Sanitation Workers Busted for Scrap Selling

The city has arrested six sanitation workers and suspended over fifty others after busting them for using department trucks to collect and sell scrap metal on the side. The Sun reports that after a worker was seen using his sanitation truck compactor to “break open an air-conditioner, giving him access to a metal part and in the process releasing ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon into the air,” investigators strategically placed CFC-free air-conditioners along collection routes in Queens, with nine employees taking the bait. "These DSNY employees took keeping discarded items on their routes to a whole new level," said the DOI commissioner.

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By John Del Signore in News on July 16, 2008 2:50 PM

Comments [rss]

rcltrh

Who the hell cares if they take home someone elses garbage? Geez. How stupid can the dept get. Its just one less cubic foot or more of crap in the landfill if they take it home or sell it for scrap. As for the CFC's they will eventually release it in the air in the dump anyway. One space flight releases more CFC's into the air than all the air conditioners in the world would release if they were opened at once. What a crock and waste of my money to pay the cops and the courts for this nonsense.

rdc

Is it against the rules for them to keep discarded items? I always thought that once you put something in an unsecured trash container that it's essentially public domain. Does that not apply to garbagemen?