May 25

Memorial Weekend Food Delivery to Homeless Veterans

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School Kids, West Hollywood Food Coalition Send Love and Sandwiches to

Homeless Veterans

by Uncle Paulie

The school kids of Los Angeles, working with the West Hollywood Food Coalition made over 3,000 sandwich bags for Memorial Weekend.  We helped to distribute by taking a portion of the bags out to the Westwood Veteran’s Administration encampment.  There are additional thousands of veterans living under bridges and on the streets of Los Angeles in other places.  We implore the VA to provide some basic sanitary equipment here.  It would be good to move them all onto the lawn, get bathrooms, showers, wash stations set up.  Provide trash service and other basic necessities.  Good citizens have stepped up and donated large tents for the veterans to live in until some housing becomes available.  Please share this information and contact the VA and ask them to get off the dime had help these folks out.

May 18

Food Support for Homeless Veterans

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Hundreds of Veterans Living in Tents at Westwood VA Facility

by Uncle Paulie

As our last video showed, hundreds of veterans are living in tents, both on and off the VA Facility in Westwood   A group of Old Veterans Guard has been collecting donations and putting up nice tents for those in need.  Our trip this week, with a carload of food, was interesting as there are even more tents on the inside and outside of the property than we saw on our trip last week.  Those on the outside are not allowed in to use the washing or bathroom facilities.  Conditions almost rival that of some battlefield situations where you at least would get food, water and rotation out.  The veterans have organized their camp on the outside, and keeping it as clean as possible, removing trash, etc.  They are doing the best they can.

We picked up a load of bagged sandwiches from the West Hollywood Food Coalition and the Salvation Army.  These are complete lunches made by high school students and concerned parents.  The official food banks are running low on food according to our information.  A group we volunteer with, Earth Harmony Foundation, has seen it’s food donations fall by about 80% from the markets that donate “expired food”.  The government food chain is tottering, and hopefully will not collapse, as thousands of folks depend on it.  Here’s our video below, we hope to put up an interview with the Veterans in the next few days.  Video by Julie Webster.

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May 08

Large Veteran Homeless Camp Outside Los Angeles V.A.

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Video Tour of West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Homeless Camp

Video courtesy of Paul Hunt, Facebook

Things are definitely getting worse in Los Angeles as the so-called “Lock Down” continues.  Food supplies at homeless shelters are running low.  Despite the City claiming that homeless are being put into hotels, the number on the streets seems to have increased.  As more and more layoffs occur, more folks will lose their apartments and be out on the street.  The homeless camp at the V.A. pictured in the video has grown in the last few weeks, and now over 50 tents are actually on the front lawn of the property, as well as two encampments on the outside.  Questions for the VA:

Can the VA provide the homeless veterans with portable bathrooms and showers?

Can the VA provide food for the homeless veterans who are sleeping around the compound?

Can the VA provide medical help to the homeless veterans?

Can the VA provide any personal protection masks, disinfectants and gloves?’

Can the VA even provide trash cans and help keep the area clean?  It looks pretty bad.

They want you to fight and die for your country.  Can they bring themselves to organize these facilities to take care of the veterans in the time of their need?

Dec 15

State of California CalRecycle Hits CVS With $3.6 Million Enforcement Action

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CVS Refuses To Refund Bottle Deposits to Consumers Triggering Massive Fine

Snared by State Regulations

As we have seen, the collapse of California’s Recycling program has caused problems and huge losses in many sectors.  The closing of Recycling giant RePlanet and many other recycling centers like the huge Santa Monica Recycling Center was the end result of gross mismanagement by various City and State Bureaucrats.  The head of CalRecycle is said to be resigning at the end of the year.  Meanwhile, consumers struggle to find places to redeem their bottles and cans.  Stores and chains that refuse to pay back the deposits/or send a $100 per day extortion fee to the State are being fined, like the recent CVS $3.6 million.

How did we get to this point?  Certainly the Federal Government bears some responsibility.  The China trade war resulted in China stopping and/or slowing its massive buying of recycled products from the U.S.  “We don’t want your trash” they said.  Part of that problem would be the big exporters dumping too much contaminants into the loads.  Part is retaliation for U.S. trade sanctions.  A big slow-down of China purchases of scrap caused the prices to fall, putting pressure on our recycling industry.  The big losers in all this are not just RePlanet type shops, but the cunsumers have been really screwed.

The State of California, meanwhile, continues to rake in the bucks.  They make money either way.  Now that hundreds of recycling centers have closed, payouts for redeeming bottles and cans go down, but income from charging consumers 5 and 10 cents per container continues to pour in to State coffers by the millions.  A bigger profit for the greedy State.  Plus they now can collect millions more by fining the stores for not complying with the rules.  The chains and convenience stores did not see this coming, and they didn’t want to have to take back cans and bottles, it’s at times a logistical nightmare for them.

Plus, the State makes even more money by telling consumers to dump their recycled cans and bottles into the “Blue Bins” run by the cities, more money for their partners in this scam, the local cities.  This big mess calls the whole program into question.  Why should the State be involved at all?  Why not let consumers not pay ANY deposit, and just run campaigns to push them to recycle at scrap yards for market prices?  The retailers, stores and chains would be very happy with this.  The consumers would be happy not to pay the deposit.  The thieves who smuggle in millions of bottles to California scrap yards from other states would be out of business.  More scrap yards will open up to process the bottles and cans.  Low income and homeless could once again make a few bucks and get some exercise hunting for scrap.

California should shut down this program.  They can do better by just being cheerleaders for recycling and helping and encouraging the recycling industry to make advancements.  The bottle deposit scam should end now.

Oct 13

California Recycling Program – Exposing The Aluminum Can Scam

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As More Information Comes Out It Is Clear That Consumers Are Being Skinned

by Paul Hunt

In past posts we have shown that the State of California’s Recycling Program has cheated consumers in many ways, the latest being to destroy the network of their own sub-contractors and squeezing them until they were forced to close.  Not only was RePlanet pushed out, but cities like Santa Monica also closed their entire recycling yard.  We exposed their FRAUD in their own words and documents.  And now another part of it has come to light.

The once bustlling  Santa Monica yard is now silent. All employees have lost  their jobs.

This is regarding the aluminum cans.  Although the State makes you pay five cents recycling deposit for each can, they make it very hard for you to return the can to get your money back.  By gutting out the RePlanet and recycling centers, there are only a few places left to recycle cans.  And now it is revealed that in the last few years THE CAN MANUFACTURERS HAVE MADE THE CANS THINNER AND LIGHTER.  The figure is 40% thinner and lighter!  This means that if you go to a recycling yard and turn in aluminum cans you will be paid by WEIGHT, now 40% LESS than years gone by.  The only way to get your money back is to go to a place that will refund the CRV deposit completely, five cents per can, not by weight.  But California is SO SORRY, almost all those places have been closed.  Now they are talking it up in the CORRUPT State Legislature to RAISE the CRV price per can, SO THEY CAN CHEAT YOU OUT OF EVEN MORE MONEY!

You don’t have to go to a third world country to find corruption.  Mass fraud and cheating is right here in California.

Aug 07

Secret List of Locations To Get Your Deposts Back (CRV)

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Use This List To Find Stores In California That Have Signed Forms With the State of California Obligating Them to Return Deposits

Don’t Look at this list – It’s a Secret List.

Check the list.  “Option A” stores and markets MUST give you your money back.  “Option B” stores do not have to because they pay the State $100 per day to opt out.  Print out this list and keep it with you.

List of redemption locations

Aug 07

Recycling Collapses in California – Huge Crises

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rePlanet Closes All Recycling Centers – 800 Employees Laid Off – Consumers Have Nowhere To Go To Get Deposit Money Back.

Conspiracy Theories Deepen as CalRecycle knew that rePlanet was running at a loss for years and refused to help.

The giant recycling Company rePlanet has closed down.  It was running at a loss for quite some time, and it was up to the State of California’s CalRecycle to help them out.  Because the big grocery chains and the gas station stores and the 7-11 stores lobbied so they would not have to bear an unreasonable cost and hassle to take care of the recycling bottles and cans and returning deposits, companies like rePlanet took up the challenge.  The problem was rising costs, rising wages, and now facing a 25% tariff tax on all recyclables going to China, they needed financial help from the State.  Not enough was offered, so down they went, and now almost 1,500 recycling outlets have closed down in the last few years.

The State, however, is laughing all the way to the bank.  They get all the money from the CRV deposits and make even more money because they don’t have to pay it back to the consumer.  They make some $200,000,000 per year on this.  This is now a serious fraud on the California consumer, who pays a deposit and now can’t find a place to get their money back.

And then there are the cities, many of whom have closed down their recycling yards.  They now get all their bottles and cans FREE in the blue recycle bins, and SELL them to the State of Callifornia, thereby making millions of dollars.

Read our other posts on this, and also go to www.SouthlandNewsBureau for more..

Also check out www.container-Recycling.org for more information