In the Los Angeles area last year a minimum of 6.2 million shopping carts went missing according to California Shopping Cart Retrieval corp and Hernandez Cart Service Inc. (via Harper’s). I find this number amazing. I wonder if the number of shopping carts that go missing are reflective of the number of homeless. I know scrap steel has gone up but where do these carts go. I also find it funny that there are companies specializing in shopping cart recovery. These companies in my mind are like Dog The Bounty Hunter for shopping carts. It just goes to show that there are niche businesses everywhere. This problem does beg for a technology solution like RFID or something. 6.2 million WOW, I wonder what the recovery cost is to the stores.

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