Recycling Under the Cloak of Darkness : Apartment dweller lives for the day she gets her own curbside bin. Until then, she skulks at night, depositing her recyclables in the receptacles of others.

I’ve always vaguely known it was illegal to steal from the recycling bins that my neighbors faithfully place on their lawns every Monday night. What I need to know is whether it’s any kind of misdemeanor to donate my milk jugs and tin cans to their yellow containers.

You see, I am an ardent recycler, but I have the reverse of the problem shared by many Angelenos and aired by Janet Bernson in this space a few weeks ago. Scavengers are stealing their recyclables from in front of their homes. I, however, am among the city’s large population of apartment dwellers, so the city does not provide me with bins for anything I recycle. If I want to recycle, I have to sneak around.

I have a storage place on my balcony for my newspapers and aluminum cans, and I even enjoy my trips to the local recycling center once a month. I use the small amount of revenue to treat myself to breakfast or a movie.

My problem comes with all the other recyclables. I don’t know where to sell the milk jugs, tin cans and Styrofoam, and besides, even at a hefty $640 a ton, you would have to store a large volume of plastic milk containers to make any real money. Yet I can’t bring myself to toss them in the dumpster. So once a week I am forced to play Bond--Jane Bond.

*

My husband doesn’t know my secret identity. I wait until the sun sets and most of my home-owning neighbors are comfortably settled in for the night. Then I put on my sneakers and sweetly announce I’m dumping the kitty litter. My husband doesn’t look up from the Discovery Channel. I slip outside with my contraband and stalk the neighborhood.

Who doesn’t have the outside lights on? Whose car is garaged for the night so they won’t notice their tin cans have reproduced? Who left enough room among their cat-food tins and Evian bottles for a few green-bean cans and plastic shampoo bottles?

Once I’ve found a safe haven, I check around for cars driving by, neighbors walking their dogs or kids riding their bikes. I smile at all I encounter, keeping my face averted slightly, and once they’ve turned the corner, I dump my trash into or alongside their recycling containers and fade into the night.

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Should I have to do this? Why are apartment dwellers in a city that is 50% apartments denied the joy of helping to save the planet?

We don’t have the city recycling program that L.A.’s single-family homes enjoy because we don’t have any city trash collection at all. Our trash is picked up by private haulers.

Surely that doesn’t have to be the end of it. Can’t the city provide dumpsters for recyclables to those of us living the communal life? The trucks drive through our neighborhoods anyway. Is it really asking that much to provide us with a few more of those pretty yellow bins? Or can’t private haulers be encouraged or compelled to do some recycling? Wouldn’t they profit from it? After all, we’re constantly hearing that the price of recyclable goods is off the charts.

To find out about these matters, I called Carmen Navarro of the city’s Integrated Solid Waste Management Office. She told me I am not alone in my frustration. A recent study conducted by her office showed that 8% of apartment tenants are out in the dark on recycling nights, skulking around as they contribute to their home-owning neighbors’ bins.

And, most gratifyingly, she assured me that yes, indeed, an extension of recycling to apartment dwellers is under study by her department. She is currently riding shotgun with the recycling trucks on various routes, looking for a neighborhood in which to start a pilot program. Until then, her office can supply a list of businesses and nonprofit groups that will go to apartment buildings and collect recyclables.

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That’s exciting news. I was getting tired of lying to my husband. From now on, I’ll be keeping my spyglass pointed at the recycling trucks as they trundle down my street.

Please hurry, city of Los Angeles, and make me a legal recycler. Stop me before I stalk again.