Abandoned Shopping Carts

"Everyday throughout Los Angeles thousands of shopping carts are ditched in neighborhoods and dumped in back alley’s, used and abandoned. Serving as a key element in our commerce driven society, they act as a modern day pack-mules carrying goods down the aisles of stores and across large parking lots to waiting cars. For those shoppers without transport, these carts often make the slow journey home only to be cast aside after reaching their driver’s destination.

To Combat what has been deemed a public nuisance, the city has passed numerous laws making it illegal to be in possession of a shopping cart in public and will fine businesses for allowing customers to repeatedly make-off with them. In accordance, carts have been equipped with all manners of wheel-locking devices and some markets attach tall poles so as to not let them out the door, yet many still escape. As a last resort, contractors are hired to scour the neighborhood in search of stolen pushcarts, which are then sold back to their respective establishments to wait for the next customer and possibly the start of another strange odyssey."