Who Is Stealing Tehran’s Garbage Cans?

By Faramarz Mozaffari

This series is written by citizen journalists on the ground in Iran who prefer, for the sake of their privacy and security, not to disclose their identity.

The theft of garbage cans, or garbage containers as they are officially called, has become an everyday affair in Tehran and other large cities. Often when residents leave their homes in the morning they see only garbage where the garbage can used to stand.

Forty percent of the complaints by Tehran residents about city services relate to garbage and the garbage collection system, according Office 137 which is responsible for investigating such complaints.

Tehran has about 85,000-90,000 garbage cans each costing from the equivalent of $140 to more than $200 and the municipality says that their theft is a major drain on city resources.

Most of the garbage cans in public space are made from polyethylene, have four wheels and come in two sizes, 1100 and 660 liters. They are used in streets, hospitals, housing complexes and many other places. A small number are manufactured domestically and the rest are imported. A manufacturer’s website declares that “polyethylene have this advantage that they can be recycled easily after they are worn out.”

“Easily recycled” is perhaps the main reason for stealing them. Each container weighs 55 kilos and the thieves sell them as raw plastic to manufacturers who can use them. The other motive is simply to use them somewhere else.

In 2009, when media reported the theft of 4,000 garbage cans in Tehran, the director-general of the city’s Department of Motor Vehicles stated that “these containers were stolen to be used in industrial centers, gardens, restaurants and other such places.” At that time authorities identified 15 people as garbage-can thieves and sent them to court. The official asked private entities to inform the city if they needed containers or to buy them from manufacturers.

An unexpected culprit is the Persian New Year’s Chaharshanbeh Soori festivities, which are celebrated on the last Wednesday of the Iranian calendar year by lighting bonfires and jumping over them. In 2007 it was estimated that 600 garbage cans were set on fire.

Since then the city officials have not published new statistics on garbage can thefts, but sooner or later any resident of Tehran notices another missing bin in a residential area or a business district. The city usually provides a new garbage container in a few days after people complain but until then the space left by the stolen container is piled high with garbage.

Most of the thefts or burnings take place in low-traffic neighborhoods or deserted alleys and streets, so the city has declared that in such areas it would replace plastic cans with metal containers. What is more, metal containers are manufactured domestically while the domestic capacity and technology for making polyethylene cans is limited or subpar.