There's been an ongoing fight for several years between neighbors in the vicinity of Dolores, Duboce, and Market Streets and homeless advocates over the eviction of the outdoor, nonprofit recycling center at the upper corner of the nearby Safeway parking lot. It's a business that many have seen as a blight on the area because of the noise and the clientele it attracts, namely homeless or poor people pushing shopping carts full of recyclables. Safeway served eviction papers to the recycling center a year ago, but the center has refused to vacate, and now they're more than two weeks past an agreed-upon deadline to leave.
A group of about 30 protesters gathered at the San Francisco Community Recyclers yesterday, as SFGate and KRON4 reported (see video below), on a day that the center did not open. Protesters say that the closing of the center deals a huge blow to homeless people who depend on the place for a meager income. It is one of the few recycling centers in the city that pays cash in exchange for recyclables.
About 1900 people have signed a petition at MoveOn.org to keep the center open, however it appears to be a done deal. Supervisor Scott Wiener has been pushing for the center to close since he first took office, having fielded many complaints from the neighborhood, and now he says, "It is time for the center to close down."
In early 2013, another community recycling center in the Haight was bulldozed, leading to similar protests.
The center at the Safeway complex dates back a couple of decades, after the 1987 California Bottle Bill made it mandatory for grocery stores to provide recycling centers near their premises or else accept bottle drop-offs in-store. Wiener and others have been pushing for the city to revamp its recycling program and install new recycling centers in less densely populated areas, but no such effort has yet taken shape. Nonetheless, recycling centers like these have become obsolete for everyone except the homeless in the age of curbside recycling.
A last-ditch effort by activists is to ask that Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi take a political stand and refuse to dispatch deputies to carry out the eviction. Following the signed agreement to vacate, the recycling center may just be leaving of its own accord. According to Hoodline, the Sheriff's Department has the eviction "scheduled and in the queue."
Previously: Market Street Safeway Evicts Recycling Center, Expands Starbucks
