Airport seizures recycled for cash

LAS VEGAS - Some airports destroy the nail clippers, scissors, screwdrivers, hammers and other potentially dangerous items confiscated every day by airport security screeners. Other states are on the cutting edge of selling pocket knives and pool cues for cash.

"This stuff brings a pretty good price on eBay," said Rob Deignan, a spokesman for California's General Services Department.

Heightened security at the nation's airports after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has sparked a little-known but burgeoning economy in which tons of items deemed unsafe for airline travel are resold through online auctions.

Through September, California used eBay to unload 13,000 pocket knives, 1,400 corkscrews and about 1,200 pounds of hammers, saws, chisels and other tools collected by federal screeners at airports in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, Fresno, San Jose and Orange County.

California's 337 online auctions, which include bulk sales of up to 100 pocket knives at a time, generated $62,000 for its self-funded surplus program.

"We sell whatever seemingly ridiculous item people would try to take on an airplane," Deignan said. "We're taking what we've gotten from the airports and turned around and put it back into people's hands and back into the economy."

At McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, almost 47,000 knives and more than 77,000 scissors or similar objects were seized in the 18 months ending Oct. 31, according to the Transportation Security Administration. The agency also reported confiscating 978 replica weapons, 609 box cutters, 460 clubs or bats, 38 firearms and 24 explosive items.

Until recently, most were destroyed because Nevada's state government chose not to take custody of them. But last month, Arkansas received more than 10,000 items collected from McCarran. It was unclear if McCarran items will go to Arkansas again in the future.

South Carolina, Illinois, Washington and Oregon are among the other states that confirmed their surplus agencies also take part in this bit of recycling, which sometimes lets people use the Internet to buy back items taken away from them before they boarded their flights.

Kentucky obtains seized items from Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at airports in Louisville and Lexington, and also from Florida airports in Orlando and Tampa.

"We've got a dump truck at Fort Knox that's available to haul all the stuff," said Chuck Geveden, director of the Kentucky Division of Surplus Property. "We love it. It's fun for us because we get to go through all this stuff and see who was stupid enough to try to take something on a plane. Of course, we don't get the guns. They destroy those."

Kentucky hawks most of its items on eBay but sells some directly to a few "approved buyers," such as police officers, firefighters and Boy Scouts. The self-funded program helps save local governments money by supplying public safety agencies with knives, tools, pepper spray and other items they would normally buy at a higher price.

"A brand new multipurpose tool, if you bought it at Home Depot you're going to pay 60 bucks, whereas I have them for sale for 10 bucks. And the fire department needs multipurpose tools," Geveden said.

Like California, Kentucky sells scissors, by far the most surrendered item at the nation's airports, by the pound.

"I've got 500 to 600 pounds of scissors right now," Geveden said. "And I'll sell them for five or six bucks a pound to schools and universities. Ten pounds of scissors will bring 40 or 50 bucks on eBay."

Like any profitable and growing sector of the American economy, this one has attracted middlemen.

A few enterprising people purchase items surrendered at airports from the state governments in large lots on eBay and then sell them one-at-a-time at a profit.

"It's a roundabout economy," said John Morris, a Springfield, Ill., accountant whose home is full of items seized from travelers. "All these people are losing so many of these things at security checkpoints, so I thought these must be hot items. People are going to want this stuff back, I might as well sell it to them."

Morris, a state employee, became an Internet entrepreneur after Illinois' budget crunch forced him to accept pay cuts that reduced his income by more than 30 percent.

The tubs of Leatherman tools, Swiss Army knives and other items in his home come from the state of California's eBay auctions or from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

For Morris, a real score is when he buys a few pounds of scissors and gets a pair of hairstylist's or barber's shears, which can fetch $150 to $300 a pair.

In the few months he's been auctioning surrendered items on amazon.com and eBay, he's generated nearly $5,000 in revenue.

He said he's expanding operations this year with a new Web site to complement his online auctions.

He shouldn't have any trouble staying stocked up, as the number of prohibited item collections show no sign of subsiding.

The TSA, which screens passengers and luggage at 429 airports nationwide, takes legal possession of the property when a passenger surrenders it at a checkpoint rather than take it back to a car or hand it to someone who's not traveling.

The TSA then offers the items collected by screeners to any state government willing to take them off their hands.

Not all of the items collected are sold online.

Washington state, which has picked up 11,000 pounds of prohibited items from Washington's airports in the past nine months, has donated much of it to other entities.

"The fingernail clippers and fingernail files go to the homeless shelters, and then we donate the Swiss Army knives to the Boy Scouts," said Doug Coleman, manager of Washington State Surplus Programs. "We let the fire departments and the police officers go through the tools. We sell a pair of scissors or a pocket knife for 25 cents."

The California government last year donated 100 mini-canisters of pepper spray surrendered at airports to a Sacramento women's group called WEAVE, or Women Escaping A Violent Environment.

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On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov/public/

John Morris tool sale Web site:http://www.my-favorite-tools.com