Recycling: It's Good for the Environment, It's Good for Five Years

...in the Gray Bar Hotel!

Thirty-one people in three separate fraud rings were arrested last month on suspicion of illegally collecting more than $3.5 million in redemption money, according to the state attorney general's office. They have been charged with conspiracy, grand theft and unlawful recycling.

Unlawful recycling? Yep. Recycling fraud is illegal in California. The thirty one Rhode Scholars above trucked in millions of bottles and cans, because when you buy a beverage in California, you pay a CRV, California Redemption Value, which you can reclaim when you recycle the bottle or can. By trucking bottles and cans in from other states, where the CRV wasn't paid, there was a large windfall for the crooks.

In one case, 1.6 million pounds of cans and bottles were imported from Nevada

1.6 million pounds at 5-10 cents a bottle or can? Wonder what these guys could have earned if they'd set their minds to earning an honest living?