COLORADO SPRINGS — More shopping carts than you will find at the entrance of many stores are lined up in a half dozen rows at a Colorado Springs Public Works location designated for recyclable material.
“All these carts are ones that are found on our local trails, creeks, parks, or abandoned on the side of the road,” said Colorado Springs Public Works, Program Supervisor, Corey Rivera.
There are around 75 carts currently at the location.
“This represents February,” said Rivera.
It is one month of collection, minus some carts that have already been picked up by a company that refurbishes and recycles them.
“We want to minimize the amount of waste that's actually going to the landfill, which is why we're taking this extra effort into this and stockpiling these and getting them cleaned up and back to their proper locations.”
Many in the community do not recognize the extent of the issue.
“Every day we find shopping carts,” said Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, Executive Director Dee Cunningham.
Four to five days a week Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful organizes groups to pick-up trash and debris across the city.
Cunningham’s been doing it for nearly 30 years and has a good sense of what and who is responsible for the mess.
Plenty of carts come from homeless camps, but it is not the only source.
She said, “It's the homeless or other community members taking them away from the stores to use them for their relocation purposes, maybe taking their groceries home and leaving them on a corner.”
River estimates between 100 to 200 carts a month are retrieved.
They are an eyesore when abandoned.
If the winds blowing and they roll into a road it is dangerous.
In waterways they cause damage.
“Cause the creeks to start backing up if they get lodged incorrectly, or through our culvert pipes,” said Rivera, “It collects a lot of trash with them, which continues to back up water.”
Removing carts from store property is illegal.
Enforcement is also difficult.
Cunningham points to other parts of the country where some stores have invested in ways to discourage cart theft.
“The state I came from has locking carts. You can't remove them from the store’s property.”
The current way of dealing with it in Colorado Springs is with the cleanup and recycle programs.
The is some deterrent when shoppers return carts to corrals and back inside the store.
When someone spots an abandoned cart, reporting it with the GoCOS App helps.
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