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Broke Guy Faces $2,000 Fine for Collecting Recyclables
By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 20, 2010
Modified Oct 20, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 20, 2010
Modified Oct 20, 2010
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The Department of Sanitation intends to make an example of a Staten Island man who tried to horn in on their turf by collecting recyclables from benefactors along his paper route. Poor Anthony McCorkle is trying to make ends meet by delivering the Staten Island Advance with the help of his brother's Hyundai. Some of his customers know he's in a tough spot, and they let him take the recyclable bottles in the bins outside their residence. But McCorkle is not a trained Department of Sanitation worker, and on Friday morning he was busted with a car full of contraband.
No-nonsense sanitation enforcer Robert Barrows spotted the bottles and cans in McCorkle's borther's 1997 Hyundai and told the perp to "turn off the car and give me the keys." McCorkle tells the Staten Island Advance that he replied, "It's my brother's car. I need the car to finish my paper route." That's probably the saddest combination of sentences we've heard all week, but Barrows was unfazed, and impounded the car, which McCorkle's brother has to pay $120 to get back. And both brothers each face a maximum $2,000 fine.
Ironically, if McCorkle had just used a bicycle to deliver the papers/collect the cans, we would have been totally legal. A DSNY spokesman explains to the Advance, "It's unlawful for any person, except for DSNY, to remove or transport by motor vehicle any recyclable materials placed out at curbside, within the stoop line, or in front of the premise for collection or removal by DSNY." However: "The Department does not issue violations to individuals who remove curbside recyclables via shopping cart or on foot."
Tagged
broke
department of sanitation
recycling
staten island
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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