The trash business is a strange one... For you accounting types, I think of it as having a negative "cost of goods sold" on their income statement. A collection fee is charged at the front end -- to collect the garbage at the curb. A tipping fee is charged at the back end -- to dispose of the non-recycled materials at a landfill. In the middle, the recyclable materials are removed (usually at a transfer station or "materals recovery facility") and sold. Three income streams, no cost of raw materials, but very high labor, fuel, and maintenance costs; and high start-up costs. In a city like Irvine, the collection fees charged are negotiated by the City, which awards a contract to a private company. In our case, that is Waste Management, Inc. which is the "big dog" in that business. Other companies are competitive, however, and operate in other areas of the Southland. Removing the really good stuff (like cans) from the recycle bin makes it harder to justify the effort to recycle the rest. Or, looking at it a different way, they would be able to justify higher collection fees when they negotiate their contract terms with the City. On the other side, recycling actually hurts the company's landfill tipping fee income. Less trash in the dump means less revenue. Don't get me wrong... recycling, no matter how and by whom, is a good thing. It just has some unintended consequenses on the trash collection business economics.
I'm uncomfortable having anybody rifle through my trash cans, because I couldn't tell the difference between someone looking for cans and someone looking for paperwork for identity theft. If the recyclables are going to be recycled anyway, I'm not a fan of the private party entrepreneur.
