NYC's Vanishing Appliances: Worn Out Appliances Means Cash for Hard Times

In New York City, the sanitation companies will pick up old appliances upon arrangement. For the sanitation company, there is money in recycling the old appliances so they have no problem picking them up. There is just one problem. The economy is so bad that over 11,000 appliances have gone missing before the sanitation companies can get to them.

In other words, hard times have caused people to steal them from the driveways and alleys where the sanitation companies are supposed to pick them up and recycle them for the cash the sanitation companies were promised through offering the service and recycling the parts.

From the New York Times:

Over the last several months, 22,741 New Yorkers contacted the city’s Department of Sanitation and arranged for the pickup of refrigerators, air-conditioners and freezers. In more than 11,000 instances, the machines vanished before sanitation workers arrived in their white trucks to pick them up.


Perhaps it is not the most pressing question facing city authorities, but it is something of a mystery nonetheless. The appliances did not develop legs and walk away, and they did not simply disappear.

Scavengers, to be sure, abound in New York, especially during tough economic times. But the sheer magnitude of the thefts — 11,528 appliances, to be precise — over a relatively brief period suggests to some in city government and the recycling industry that a more organized enterprise may be at work as well.

Deepening the mystery, these were neither the latest Sub Zero behemoths, sleek Bosch nor stylish retro Smeg refrigerators. They were garbage, quite literally — discarded appliances left at the curb for pickup by the Sanitation Department.

And while the value of one discarded appliance may seem marginal at best, in the scrap industry, the fluctuations of commodity prices and volume add up to real money.

Indeed, the big loser in what might be called New York’s Appliances Caper appears to be a multinational recycling conglomerate, a subsidiary of which has a large city contract to recycle the hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, glass and plastic generated each year by New Yorkers, including bulk metal, like appliances.

The subsidiary, Sims Municipal Recycling of New York L.L.C., estimates that the thefts, along with schemes involving redeemable bottles, are costing the company $2 million to $4 million a year.

Of course Obama says the economy is getting better. Just think about that. The economy is so bad, people are stealing trash in New York City.