West Oakland-based Alliance Recycling to close doors in August

By Paul Ploumis (ScrapMonster Author)

July 12, 2016 07:53:41 AM

LOS ANGELES (Scrap Monster):  West Oakland-based Alliance Recycling has decided to shut operations during the month of August this year. The facility has been in operation since the 1970’s at Peralta Street near the West Oakland border with Emeryville between 34th and 35th streets. The facility has 18 full-time employees. The facility had been a means of living for recyclable collectors, majority of whom are homeless, who were paid for bringing in materials including glass, metals and plastic bottles.

The recycler has been in immense pressure from residents and government officials from some time. The company has been issued nearly 23 citations of $250 each during the three-month period from April 2nd to July 3rd in 2015. As of September last year, the company has been issued over 40 citations and around $18,000 in fines. City documents alleged that Alliance customers were found obstructing public right of way. There were allegations that the facility had kept its doors open despite no business being conducted. Citations were also issued for alleged sorting of materials on the street and for abandoned shopping carts causing inconvenience to the public. Other citations involved double parking by Alliance trucks and customer vehicles. Most recently, the company was fined $2,592.75 for alleged illegal dumping. However, the company refuted the charges saying that it had just piled up abandoned furniture temporarily in the street, which were later removed. On the other hand, city officials noted that the facility had attracted unprecedented number of complaints which had prompted them to conduct detailed investigation into the matter.

Although Alliance’s attorney was confident of winning the hearing, the partners were not interested in continuing with the facility, as they feared more protests to emerge from neighborhood residents and city authorities with respect to operation of the facility. Following this, the company officials held meeting with city officials during August last year and reached an agreement to close the facility within one year. As per the agreement, Alliance Recycling has to close its operations by next month, failing which the company will have to pay fines.

However, the closing of the recycling centre is feared to affect the employed persons at the facility and hundreds of people who make their living by bringing in recyclables to the centre for cash. As per estimates, the recycling centre used to pay approximately $5 million per annum in exchange of collected recyclables. Reports indicate that the company is yet to find a new location as discussions with city officials have not yielded any result.

Allied Metals recycling center was established in 1978. It was renamed to Alliance recycling in 1992. During 2002-2007, the company had invested nearly $200K in recycling center building and security improvements including installation of sound baffling equipment to reduce noise, property fencing to discourage loitering, installation of video surveillance cameras to enable monitoring of park from police station and financing regular cleanup of neighborhood park. The company’s plan to relocate to a more industrial zone in 2009 was permanently stalled due to change in office at city planning department.