Santa Ana neighborhood locks up trash to thwart scavengers

Signs atop bins spell it out: STOP. It's against the law to take recyclables out of the containers and Scavenging is a crime!

For Faccou, scavenging is degrading her quality of life.

"They come through at 10:30, 11, 12:30 at night with this clankety clankety clank clank, and they get the dogs going," she said. "We used to turn a blind eye to it, but for the last three years it's been escalating."

Whereas she used to wait until she heard the rumble of the approaching truck before wheeling her gray bin to the curb, "now I feel more secure," she said.

Locks are often used to protect commercial recycling and trash containers from dumpster divers and scavengers, but only recently have they been engineered for residential purposes.

The locking bin used in Santa Ana was first designed as a bear-proof container, said Shawn Kruse, a product development manager for supplier Rehrig Pacific, but "it couldn't stand up to that level of abuse."

San Bernardino is testing locks to keep trash from spilling out of containers at a dozen homes in a particularly windy neighborhood.

The city of Los Angeles has considered locks to curb scavenging but hasn't found anything practical. Oceanside has installed anti-scavenging locks on the receptacles at its beaches and harbor, albeit reluctantly.

"We don't want to be known as the city that locks public recycling containers," said Colleen Foster, management analyst for Oceanside's solid waste and recycling division. "What's important is diversion, getting it away from landfills."

Not everyone in the Santa Ana neighborhood is sold on the idea.

Rigo Castro, a 42-year-old carpenter, doesn't see what the fuss is about.

He sees scavengers pushing grocery carts at night, but "I don't mind," he said. He doubts whether most people consider the scavenging enough of an intrusion to put their recyclables on lockdown.

Scavengers, for their part, seem to shrug it off. Or adapt.

Jose Santos, 36, a homeless man who collects bottles and cans in the neighborhood, said the locks haven't deterred him. If he encounters one, he just moves on to the next house or digs through the trash, where people sometimes mistakenly toss glass and plastic.

On a recent trash pickup day, he was pushing a grocery cart with about $15 worth of bottles and cans -- a night's work -- on his way to a recycling center.

"There are plenty of good people that even help us out" by leaving bottles and cans out for him or giving him money to eat, Santos said. "So I'm not concerned."

Lucy Bateson, 62, one of Santa Ana's anti-scavenging crusaders, hopes the locks result in a calmer neighborhood, one where she isn't afraid of strangers coming onto her property to score bottles or cans.

"Maybe the locking cans will be the answer. It gives you a level of comfort putting it out there," Bateson said. "No matter what anybody says, it's not trash. It has value."

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tony.barboza@latimes.com