"Earlier this year, San Jose politicians announced they were targeting the thousands of abandoned shopping carts clogging creeks and blighting streets. Now the first data on a pilot program aimed at curbing the problem is in, and the city must decide whether the results justify the financial cost of expanding it. San Jose had long struggled to rein in the abandoned shopping cart problem, due in part to antiquated state rules and ineffective city code."
""The thousands of carts that are lost every year and scattered across sidewalks, parks, our trails and waterways are not just a visible quality of life issue for our residents, not just an eyesore, but they actually really damage the environment," Mayor Matt Mahan said last week."
""I can tell you every single cleanup along the waterways we do, we're fishing dozens of carts out, so I appreciate that we're looking to find a measured, targeted program that's got cost recovery baked in, that holds retailers accountable, incentivizes them for upstream loss prevention, keeping our neighborhoods and waterways clean.""
San Jose implemented a multi-pronged strategy to address thousands of abandoned shopping carts that clog creeks, sidewalks and waterways and harm the environment. Measures include stricter local regulations requiring theft-prevention mechanisms, security deposit devices, or cart-retrieval contracts obligating weekly proactive retrieval by large retailers. The city secured a statewide bill allowing governments to return carts to retailers and recover retrieval costs. A pilot retrieval program collected 734 carts in three months. Officials must now weigh pilot results against financial cost to determine whether to expand the program and enforce greater retailer accountability.
Read at The Mercury News
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