r/berkeleyjerk

Hey everyone, I need to bring light to something incredibly messed up happening at the Berkeley recycling center.

Today, my partner went in with 14 pounds of plastic. We recycle to get by, so we know exactly what we are doing. We meticulously sort our stuff. Out of those 14 pounds, there might have been one or two individual pieces of non-CRV plastic that accidentally slipped in—definitely not even a quarter of a pound.

The staff decided to use that as an excuse to completely rip him off. They mixed the entire load together and claimed he brought in 13 pounds of scrap plastic (payout: $0.26 total) and only 1 pound of CRV (payout: $1.00 total). The math is physically impossible. They straight-up stole from us because they thought they could get away with it.

This isn't an isolated incident or a simple mistake. If you talk to anyone in the unhoused community who relies on recycling carts to survive, they will tell you the exact same thing:

• The staff routinely gives unhoused people attitude, questions their loads aggressively, and shorts their weight.

• They power-trip. A friend of ours recently called them out on this exact type of cheating, and they banned him (86'ed him) from the facility. Now he has to bike to an entirely different city just to turn in his recyclables, or rely on others who often take a cut of his money.

They are targeting vulnerable people because they think we won't or can't fight back. It is blatant discrimination, and it's hurting people who are already just trying to survive.
We need eyes on this. If anyone has connections to local advocacy groups, the Better Business Bureau, or local investigative journalists, please help us expose this. They need an undercover check to see how differently they treat housed people versus unhoused people bringing in the exact same materials.
Watch your receipts, watch their scales, and please help spread the word so they stop exploiting the community.

UPDATE: I am turning off notifications and will not be reading or replying to any more comments on this post.
The entire point of sharing this was to bring awareness to predatory, discriminatory business practices happening at a local recycling center. It wasn't an invitation to debate my housing status, and it certainly wasn't an invitation for harassment.
To those of you who chose to leave hate: I am truly sorry that you carry that kind of bitterness in your heart, but please keep it to yourself.
To everyone who was kind, validating, and offered actual advice or resources: thank you so much. Please don't ever stop being kind; the world needs a lot more of it right now. I’m stepping away from this thread to focus on taking care of my family.

Is anyone else annoyed by how many of those little free libraries are all over the place? I'm all for public literacy and I wish that there were more opportunities for children to pick up reading but not like this.

Nothing in this world is really free and I don't like the idea of my tax dollars being used for those. I already fund the daytime ​homeless shelter that's known as the Berkeley Public Library.

There's also a safety concern, as some of them aren't properly secured to the ground and could fall on a small child. Who would be liable in such an event? Sometimes, books can spill onto the ground, attracting vermin and creating a fall hazard for our most vulnerable senior citizens.

My neighbor Barb told me that drug dealers can use them to store their fentanyl. I haven't wanted to touch any of those books after learning that.

In loving community,

Karen

So my grandson told me I need to “get out more” so I decided to go for a walk in strawberry canyon. It’s been a couple of decades since I ventured the half mile from my house but it is NOT how I remember it. I did not make it more than 100 feet before I had to turn around due to fear for my life. I am still shaking as I write this. It must be all the people who live in all that new housing that the YIMBY people built. Is this what they want? To have our peaceful neighborhood overrun by gangsters?

As a reminder, I did vote for Obama twice so I am NOT racist. I even have one of those “hate has no home here” signs in my yard.

I tried calling the police but they said they “couldn’t help me”. Apparently they no longer have their flock security cameras so all the gangsters in the new housing can just terrorize our neighborhood without consequence.

Sincerely,
Karen

PS at this point we should just get rid of these fire trails. I have been living here for 50 years and there has never been a fire by my house. It’s just another YIMBY hoax. I will never trim my beautiful foliage

I bought this modest 6 bedroom house across the street from the park in 1972 for $12.39, and at that time the park was just for the immediate neighbors. Now there are too many people there all the time. ​Sometimes there's even tens​ of people there. On occasion there are even twenties of people. Last week I counted 26. It used to be that there was only ones or twos of people there. And let's just say they're not the good kind of people now. No over exaggeration to say that it's like Times Square at rush hour.

I tried to call the America Online to see if they could remove the park listing from the email and the MapQuest maps but I couldn't get a hold of anyone on the phone. I guess you have to go to a cyber cafe to contact them now.

I even called the city clerk office to see if there are any ordinances about how many people could be in a park. Certainly a city as respectable as Berkeley should have one or two public nuisance laws. The woman on the other end of the line had a thick accent and I couldn't understand her ebonics. She was very rude when I told her to speak real English.​ Mind you I have no problem with other cultures​ as I've done a work study program in Belgium in 1961. ​I also voted for Obama two times. ​She hung up out when I asked her if she really lived in Berkeley or just rented. The nerve.

Does anybody have any ideas on how we can shut down the park to people that don't live on the block?

Lovingly in community,

Karen