ST. LOUIS (AP) - The latest theft craze in St. Louis involves the hooks from trash bins.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/LDpPMO ) reports that theft of trash bin hooks has soared over the past two months, creating delays in trash pickup and forcing the city to foot the bill for repair and labor costs.
The hooks are on the sides of the city's 30,000 trash, yard waste and recycle bins. The mechanical arms of trash trucks grab the hooks to dump material into truck beds.
Police believe the hooks are being stolen and sold as scrap metal. City officials say that in a typical year, about 100 hooks are stolen. Nearly 1,100 have been stolen this year - more than 900 of them in May and June.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com