{"id":20,"date":"2007-07-23T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-23T19:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/wordpress\/?p=20"},"modified":"2014-06-23T15:47:57","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T22:47:57","slug":"stolen-milk-crates-feed-black-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"Stolen milk crates feed black market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dairies crack down on stolen milk crates that feed black market for plastics<\/a><\/h3>\n

Ran on AP Business wire, in USA Today and in LA Times business section (without a byline)<\/em><\/p>\n

By Raquel Maria Dillon | ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ For decades, college kids have used stolen milk crates as the basic building blocks of coffee tables and dorm room shelves.<\/p>\n

Now, a new breed of crate rustler is cashing in by swiping thousands of the containers from loading docks and selling them to shady recyclers.<\/p>\n

\"AP

AP Photo<\/p><\/div>\n

The containers are chopped into bits and shipped to booming factories in China to be made into a variety of products, from pipes to flower pots.<\/p>\n

Facing an estimated $80 million in annual losses from the thefts, dairies across the country are moving to stop the plastic pilfering. In California, companies are even hiring private detectives and staging sting operations.<\/p>\n

“We saw them disappearing into this black hole,” said Rachel Kaldor, executive director of the Dairy Institute, a trade group in Sacramento. “We just don’t know who’s stealing these crates off the loading docks.”<\/p>\n

In the past two years, the high-density polyethylene has joined a growing list of materials that are being stolen and sold via a thriving underground recycling network.<\/p>\n

Among other things, thieves target copper, aluminum bleachers, beer kegs, even cemetery vases and nameplates.<\/p>\n

It took a while for dairies to determine what was happening to their crates.<\/p>\n

“If it were just college kids taking them, the dormitories would be overflowing with milk cases,” said Stephen Schaffer, general manager of Alta Dena Dairy near Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The crates are made of petroleum-based plastic that has increased in value along with gasoline prices. The material now sells for 22 cents a pound, compared to 7 cents a pound in 2005, said Patty Moore, a recycling consultant in Sonoma, Calif.<\/p>\n

Consumers can spend as much as $10 for an “authentic” dairy crate at retailers such as the Container Store. Dairies pay about $4 when they buy in bulk.<\/p>\n

Last year, the industry lost about 20 million crates to thieves, said Clay Detlefsen, vice president and counsel of the International Dairy Foods Association.<\/p>\n

California, the nation’s largest dairy state, has taken the lead in the fight against plastic poachers.<\/p>\n

Already hurt by the theft of milk-producing hormones and incidents of cattle rustling, the state dairy industry convinced legislators to pass a law last year that allows dairies to sue recyclers accused of accepting stolen crates. No cases have hit court yet, Kaldor said.<\/p>\n

“Businesses are trying to control costs in very tight market conditions,” Detlefsen said. “And it’s not just us, the baking industry and soft drink industry is affected, too.”.<\/p>\n

After the law went into effect last January, the Dairy Institute hired private investigator Chuck Wall to educate recyclers about documenting purchases and to conduct sting operations against suspected offenders.<\/p>\n

Wall, the CEO of Creative Security of San Jose, began his efforts close to his home in Santa Clara County, building on a previous local law enforcement crackdown on the theft of copper wire from construction sites.<\/p>\n

He and undercover agents shopped around a truckload of milk crates. The 11 recyclers who took the bait were arrested.<\/p>\n

Wall expanded his operation and now works with law enforcement officials in Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties.<\/p>\n

He said his biggest bust targeted E.S. Plastics in the Los Angeles suburb of Maywood.<\/p>\n

In April, he said, he and his colleagues recovered 24,000 pounds of ground-up plastic from crates belonging to dairies, bakeries and beverage companies.<\/p>\n

“It took a 50-foot trailer to haul all the stolen property out of there — at least a quarter-million dollars of plastics,” Wall said.<\/p>\n

Orlando “Alex” Bran, the owner of the company, and another person were arrested for investigation of grand theft and receiving stolen property, said Maywood police Sgt. Scott Anderson.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles County prosecutors are considering whether to file charges. Bran, who is free on bail, declined comment.<\/p>\n

Individual dairies, meanwhile, are adding security staff to solve the milk crate mystery.<\/p>\n

Alta Dena Dairy, located east of Los Angeles, hired Edmund Woods, a former police officer, to find its stolen containers.<\/p>\n

A tip led Woods to Santee Alley in the downtown Los Angeles Garment District, where he recovered more than 300 containers from merchants using them for storage.<\/p>\n

“We don’t take a large SWAT team in, just one or two officers for a uniformed presence,” Woods said. “We’re very polite and we go in real soft.”<\/p>\n

Wood hopes the busts encourage college students and homeowners to voluntarily return any stolen milk crates they might be using. Alta Dena’s has even set up a “milk crate abuse” hotline at (800) 457-6688 for people to surrender the containers, no questions asked.<\/p>\n

“People look at milk crates like they’re nothing,” Woods said. “It says right there on the crate that this is private property … It’s clearly marked so there’s no mistaking it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dairies crack down on stolen milk crates that feed black market for plastics Ran on AP Business wire, in USA Today and in LA Times business section (without a byline) By Raquel Maria Dillon | ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES (AP) _ For decades, college kids have used stolen milk crates as the basic building blocks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,5,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/raquelmariadillon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}