the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
May 10, 2021
The City of Los Angeles’s illegal dumping problem is worsening, according to a report released by the city comptroller’s office. In 2019, Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment workers picked up nearly 16,000 tons of illegally dumped waste in public spaces, practically twice as much as in 2015.
Homeless people are usually the scapegoats for this enormous amount of waste on Los Angeles streets. But city investigators found that businesses are responsible for more than 75% of this illegal dumping in order to avoid having to pay waste removal fees. Individuals, but not homeless, were found to be responsible for most of the rest of this dumping.
And city investigators found that businesses often dumped their garbage next to homeless encampments to cover up their illegal dumping and make it easier to blame defenseless people.
The Los Angeles businesses pay very low wages and demand high rents; and lay off people any moment that suits them. And when their workers become homeless because of their actions, these businesses use living spaces of homeless on Los Angeles streets as a cheap dumping ground.