• Three asylum-seekers were arrested by ICE at San Francisco immigration court Friday, moments after hearings in which DHS attorneys moved to dismiss their asylum petitions. In at least two cases, judges declined the motion and gave the individuals time to respond in writing, which should have protected them from removal, but ICE agents arrested them anyway in the hallway. [Mission Local]
• A Sonoma County public defender was hospitalized after being beaten and robbed outside the courthouse Thursday by a former client, 44-year-old Leon Simms, who also allegedly made violent threats before fleeing. Simms was arrested Friday after a traffic stop, and police say a search of his home recovered the stolen property; he faces charges including robbery, attempted kidnapping, and battery causing serious injury. [KRON4]
• SF Sheriff Paul Miyamoto refused the DOJ's request to hand over a list of noncitizen inmates, citing the city’s sanctuary laws and saying his office “will not foster fear in immigrant communities.” [NBC Bay Area]
• San Francisco Immigration Judge Ila Deiss and Concord Immigration Judge Kyra Lilien were among the 18 judges fired by the Trump administration over the past week. [NBC Bay Area]
• In response to ICE raids, LA therapists have formed discreet “whisper networks” — password-protected referral systems helping immigrant clients access mental health care while minimizing risk. [LA Public Press]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Some new Recology recycling guidelines that have been outlined here by sfrecycles.org but have not yet appeared on the Recology website, give us a whole bunch of new things to remember when it comes to what goes in what bin.

In the good news column, for those who enjoy sending less to landfills, Recology will now accept plastic bags of almost all types (preferably bundled together inside another plastic bag), bubble wrap (also stuffed into a plastic bag), plastic wrap (same), plastic over-wrap like from a tray of water bottles (same), inflatable air pillows used in packing (deflated, stuffed into a plastic bag), juice boxes, empty paper milk cartons, and paper coffee cups along with their lids. (Just to confused things, milk cartons without plastic spouts, and all waxy cardboard, are technically still compostable, but they want them recycled now.)

Also for the blue bin: bottle caps, spray cans, clean pizza boxes (greasy ones go to compost), empty and dry paint cans with no wet paint, and fabric and clothing of all kinds — it just has to be clean, and placed in a clear bag.

Black bins, headed to landfill, still get all polystyrene packaging and packing "peanuts," broken glass and ceramics, diapers, light bulbs (incandescent only, not fluorescent), pet litter, shiny wrappers, disposable gloves, disposable razors, and "mixed material" bags and packaging like the bags that roasted coffee comes in.

You can download and print the new August 2017 guidelines for your whole building right here, and you can now be that San Franciscan who lords over your neighbors and says, "Uh uh uh — the recycling rules have changed. That goes in this bin."

I know some of you secretly enjoy that.

SF Beautiful, a non-profit founded in 1947 in response to efforts to remove cable car lines in favor of diesel buses, has a new target in its sights: All that trash on our streets and sidewalks. The organization yesterday announced the creation of Coalition for a Clean San Francisco — an attempt to get the city "a good cleaning" by highlighting what it views as the particularly dirty spots. To call attention to the issue, SF Beautiful has put out a call for residents to submit photos of trash-strewn sidewalks and streets.

"Do you think that San Francisco needs a good cleaning?" a blog post announcing Coalition for a Clean San Francisco reads. "Is the city dirtier in your neighborhood than it ever has been? Tell us more! If you have specific areas of San Francisco that you think need a good cleaning because they haven’t been cleaned in a long, long time, email us!"

The city's dirty streets have sparked conflict before, perhaps most recently when a tourist wrote a letter to Supervisor London Breed's office talking trash about, well, garbage. “I was embarrassed to be an American because of the way San Francisco is presented to the world,” tourist David Cochrane, referencing litter on city streets, wrote on July 25. (An intern with Breed's office responding that Cochrane should "write a letter to the editor of whatever town you’re from if your panties are in a bunch” was later let go by Breed.)

Those behind the campaign have started a Facebook page to collate evidence of the city's untamed refuse. Think overflowing trash bins, littered sidewalks, and lots and lots of couches.

Just what, specifically, SF Beautiful hopes to accomplish with this is unclear. However, the organization has led several successful campaigns in the past — such as, as detailed on the group's site, "[initiating] the legislation that legalized sidewalk tables and chairs" — and laughing Coalition for a Clean San Francisco off as just a Tumblr for trash would be a mistake.

And anyway, you'll finally have something to do with all those garbage photos you keep taking.

Related: Rec & Parks Hires Extra Trash Guy For Dolores Park

In hindsight, it was only a matter of time. Now, strong-stomached diners in search of the next hip food trend need look no further than the pages of Edible San Francisco and their story of Salvage Supper Club. After a few years in New York, this expanding pop-up dinner series has inevitably taken root in the Bay Area, to promote the use of bruised, overripe, or just plain overlooked and old ingredients, combining them into gourmet fare. Finally, in a somewhat questionable bit of symbolism, Salvage Supper Club is serving their feasts in the very place those ingredients might have otherwise ended up: Dumpsters.

Edible San Francisco recalls the recent menu ingredients at a SoMa installation of the series. Those were "wilted basil, bruised plums, past-their-prime tomatoes, vegetable pulp, surplus squash, whole favas (we’re talking even the tough outer layer), garbanzo bean water, dairy whey, sweet potato skins and overripe, peel-on bananas." And while "These ingredients, some of the most frequently tossed food items in home kitchens, don’t exactly whet the appetite as advertised," they write, " With the exception of the banana skin—it was hard to get past the slimy texture and scent of rot, even if the peel was reimagined as a crispy doughnut—it’s all finger-licking good." Here's that dish, by the way:

A photo posted by Lucky Peaches aka Pesha 💖🍑 (@the_bruisedpeach) on Jun 21, 2016 at 4:20pm PDT

“The idea behind this multicourse, veg-forward tasting menu is for eaters to see the incredible potential many of us fail to see in our food,” says Salvage Supper Club founder Josh Treuhaft. “I want to engage people and get them excited about food waste prevention so we send less food to the landfill or compost,” he says. “The goal here is to broaden the scope of what is edible.”

Putting their money where their mouth is, proceeds from that Salvage Supper Club meal go benefitted local group Food Runners (of whom SFist wrote recently), a nonprofit rescuing excess food from restaurants, caterers, and corporations and routing it to shelter, soup kitchens, and seniors apartments.

Refinery 29 struck a skeptical tone of the project under the headline: "People Are Paying $125 To Eat In A Dumpster." "While it's all safe to eat... we have to say the menu doesn't sound too appetizing," they write.

Salvage Supper Club doesn't appear to have any dinners coming up right away, but keep an eye on their Facebook and Eventbrite pages if it piques your appetite.

Related: Insecurity In The City Of Food: How San Francisco Feeds Its Homeless

Longtime San Francisco art lovers will surely recognize the signature artwork of local legend Jason Mecier, the kaleidoscope-portrait prodigy whose 20-year body of work includes such notables as the Big Bird portrait made of breakfast cereal, the Snoop Dogg portrait made of joints and marijuana buds, Kevin Bacon sculpted from 15 pounds of bacon and the infamous 108-square-foot junk sculpture of the Farrah Fawcett swimsuit poster. But you may not know Mecier has changed his focus to creating these portraits out of the celebrities’ actual discarded trash.

Mecier’s “Celebrity Junk Drawer” series continues this week with a new gallery exhibition, “Celebrity Trash,” the opening reception for which is Friday night at 111 Minna Gallery. SFist caught up with the dumpster-diving designer in advance of the show, which features Pamela Anderson sculpted from the actress’ own dirty laundry, Phyllis Diller crafted from the late comedian’s discarded anti-itch cream containers, and other works that prove how one queen’s trash is another queen’s treasure.

“I just finished my Heidi Fleiss portrait made out of all her chewed up bird toys and moldy slippers,” Mecier told SFist, discussing some of the works in the show. “Amy Sedaris sent me all the leftovers from her recent craft book. Amy Schumer send me a dental dam.”

Jason Mecier with his portrait of Honey Boo-Boo

These oversize trash portraits are a combination of the donated rubbish from celebrities and other detritus that Mecier embellished the portraits with himself. “It’s A mixture,” Mecier said. “Most of [the portraits] the celebrity sent me things and then I added in my own collections of junk to fill them out.”

Betty White with her portrait (in Red Vines) by Jason Mecier

Precisely how does one go about acquiring the garbage of the rich and famous? “The easiest, best way is if it’s through a friend of a friend,” Mecier told SFist. “But I also IMBD people where you can get their publicist or manager’s info.”

The video above shows a time-lapse of the roughly 50-hour process required to sculpt and fashion this garbage into stunningly realistic portraits. “I sort everything by size, color, and shape, and then try to put it together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle,” Mecier said.

That Lindsay Lohan portrait will indeed be on display in the “Celebrity Trash” exhibit, guaranteeing that the opening night reception will make for a distinctly freaky Friday.

“Celebrity Trash” is on display now at 111 Minna Gallery, with an opening reception Friday, May 6 from 5 p.m. until "late." The reception is free and open to the public.

Previously: S.F. Artist Creates Snoop Dogg Portrait Out of Joints, Buds

For a recycling scavenger whom CBS 5 is calling by the pseudonym "Daniel", it all boils down to the weight of his haul. The cans and bottles he scores from dumpsters in alleys behind San Francisco's downtown offices all hit the scale when he cashes them in at local redemption centers, and if he's doing it right, Daniel can make $1,000 a week, and about $48,0000 a year, or so he tells the station.

Daniel and scavengers like him might be unique in the current statewide California Redemption Value deposit system, instituted in 1987 — they're making money. The system is what Recycling Today calls "an outdated compensation method" that's lagged as scrap values for PET (polyethylene terephthalate), glass, and aluminum have spiraled downward for the past four years.

As the nonprofit Container Recycling Institute tells Recycling Today, certified redemption centers handle almost 90 percent of the state's 18 billion recyclable bottles. However, in the last year, 269 of them have closed, leaving 1,800 remaining.

“When it comes to falling scrap prices, these small redemption centers are the proverbial 'canaries in the coal mine,'" Institute president Susan Collins tells Recycling Today.

To subsidize the redemption centers, the state's recycling program, CalRecycle, issues “processing payments” to them. Even with those, “It’s really, really, really, difficult to stay in business,” the owner of Our Planet Recycling in San Francisco tells the station.

According to Collins, "If the current downward commodity pricing trend continues without structural adjustments to the state’s processing payment formula, recycling centers’ cumulative net losses will inevitably force more of them out of business." The cost of that? "Additional closures will mean not only more job losses and lost recycling opportunities, but a real loss to the people of California, to the sustainable economy and to the environment,” Collins says

Experts like Jennifer Mangold of UC Berkeley’s Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability agree that the status quo isn't sustainable. But something's got to give. #8220;It’ll have to be funded somehow, by consumers or legislation, or government agencies," she says. "[Somehow] it will have to be funded to make economic sense,”

Still, for the Daniels out there, commodities prices and subsidies be damned. That CRV refund stays the same: 5 cents for every container under 24 ounces, and 10 cents for ones of 24 ounces or more.

Dolores Park is already full of garbage! pic.twitter.com/lXINISx09h

— Peter Lawrence Kane (@WannaCyber) January 28, 2016

Well that didn't take long. As you no doubt know, the south side of Dolores Park reopened yesterday morning — marking the first time in two years that the entire park has been open to the public. The city decided to throw a party to celebrate, and by all accounts people came out in droves. But it seems that old habits die hard, as revelers apparently left the park "full of garbage."

So claims SF Weekly reporter Peter Lawrence Kane, who this morning wrote about an early walk with his dog that took him through the park.

"It was full of trash this morning," Kane explained. "A three-man crew was already well into bagging it up when I walked my dog there at 7:15."

Kane speculated that as it's still early in the year, it got dark early on park-goers and "it's hard to say hi to people and socialize in the dark while keeping track of your empties..."

But maybe, actually, most people have learned a lesson after all. Kane spoke with a Rec and Parks worker who was cleaning up the refuse, and the man told him that with the size of last night's crowd he expected things to look a lot worse.

So, most people picked up after themselves? Fingers crossed that trend will continue, and we'll see you at the park!

Related: Day Around The Bay: Dolores Park Gets 'Pop-Up' Trash Clean-Up Help

Each of us mourns in our own, private way. Sometimes we even mourn publicly, paying collective tribute to our loved ones and heroes. While the loss of space alien godrocker David Bowie affected each us each differently, it's safe to say it touched all of us deeply. Hearing "Changes" yesterday — "Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers / Pretty soon now you're gonna get older" — I myself was not ashamed to weep openly.

But as Death and Taxes reveals, some "mourners" were more opportunistic than moved. Brands like Crocs, for example, were quick to "honor" Bowie in selfish, corporate fashion — in their case with a Bowie-thunderbolt branded example of their patented shoe-like substance.

Worse than Crocs is the effort at "tribute" from San Jose-based Smash Mouth, a particularly desperate and manic three-hit-wonder group of "All Star" assholes. They uploaded — for their fans, ahhahaha — a cover of "Under Pressure," which is a not-even-really-by-David-Bowie-you-idiots song. Frankly this is an insult, or perhaps an injury. Don't listen to it.

Now, try as they might, none can besmirch Bowie's legacy — no more than one can smear Ziggy Stardust's makeup and make him look any less fucking fabulous, anyway. But this offense is nonetheless monstrous, and it's goddamn personal. "Listen," Smash Mouth appears to sing to us, "We are alive, while your hero, your Starman, your Starman is dead."

It is true that oftentimes we mourn in song, while it is also true that at other times we do so in silence. And at still other times, some mourn in song when they should have done so in silence — like, sacred, forever silence. And this, I'm sad to say, is one of those times.

I want to punch Smash Mouth.

Related: San Francisco Celebrates The Life Of David Bowie

Photo by Erik Wilson.

Well, this stinks: A woman in her 30s was hit by a garbage truck this morning. SF Appeal reports, "the woman was hit while walking in a crosswalk across Presidio Avenue at Pine Street in the Laurel Heights area at about 8:05 a.m." The truck was turning onto Presidio Avenue from Pine Street,a nd the driver was not arrested. The accident victim was taken to the hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Uh oh.

Did you know that you could face a steep, steep fine if you dump your old furniture on the city sidewalks? We didn't. And we've tossed everything from post-party cheap vodka to lamps to CDs to couches on the sidewalks of SF. (All of which were immediately picked up by passersby, thank you very much.) See, SF Examiner reports that "the Department of Public Works recently put out a friendly reminder on Twitter warning that residents face fines between $200 and $1,000 for such 'illegal dumping.'"

While "illegal dumping" is as common as to any urban area as is a corner liquor store or subway system, "an average of 24 tons of refuse left on the streets and in vacant lots is hauled away daily," costing the city $2 million annually.

Yikes.

Instead of leaving your crap on the streets, you can donate your unloved items to Goodwill or Salvation Army, have Sunset Scavenger or Golden Gate Recycling and Disposal get rid of them for free, or use Community Clean Team program, "which offers annual free drop off of bulky items, composting and recycling materials."

According to CBS 5's Green Beat, today the Gav proposed new building codes that will hopefully win us the title of nation's greenest skyline. Ever. In the world. Which, of course, is a good thing since other cities will follow suit. They almost always do.

Specifically, "the plan calls for all buildings over 75-feet tall and major commercial renovations of over 25,000 square feet to be in compliance with the highest benchmarks for green certification set by the U.S. Green Building Council." This won't affect any projects that are already a done deal, and the plan will have to be approved by the Supes.

LEED certification simply, more or less, means that buildings will reduce waste sent to landfills; conserve energy and water; make a healthier and safer space for occupants; reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions; ultimately qualify for tax rebates, zoning allowances, and other incentives in hundreds of cities; and demonstrate an owner's commitment to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. So...yay! We think.

Read more about it here.

Nothing says love like a sourdough bread bowl filled with New England clam chowder, a few hundred barking, stinky sea lions, and a blue square (aka registered sex offender) escorting an underage girl through the biggest tourist trap in the city.

If you thought that buskers jumping out from behind garbage cans were the scariest thing about Fisherman's Wharf, now there's something else to keep you away from the area. Could Fisherman's Wharf be the new hot spot for sexual predators?