McCarran castoffs turned into gold

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.

A cleaver with a 10-inch blade. A chainsaw. A sledgehammer.

"Would you believe somebody tried to bring this on an airplane?" asks Boulder City resident Mike Plott.

Thanks to Plott, the Transportation Security Administration's vigilance becomes Boulder City's boon. For almost a year now, he has been receiving the items collected by airport screeners and selling them on the Internet auction Web site eBay, with half the profit going to his native city's coffers.

The City Council gave Plott, who came up with the idea, a yearlong trial period last March to see if the program would work. Now it has become a success, with the profit -- split between Plott and the city -- expected to reach $100,000 by the end of this month.

Since he first started collecting items from McCarran International, Plott has expanded the program to four more airports: Reno-Tahoe, Oakland, Sacramento and San Jose. And he will soon have six part-time employees helping him with the mammoth task of sorting the objects, posting them online and shipping them to buyers.

On a recent afternoon, Plott's living room was full of boxes and buckets. He was sorting: putting cuticle scissors in one container, pocket knives in another, letter openers in another and so on.

On a table was a mishmash of uncategorizable stuff, including a belt buckle embossed with a rhinestone-studded pistol and a rifle sight that, despite not being attached to a rifle, was deemed unfit to take on board.

"If I'm lucky, I can get through five to seven boxes by myself in a day, and that's just the initial sort," Plott said. Once the items are in categories, they are further separated into auction lots. A typical sale might be 50 corkscrews or 25 nail clippers.

The arrangement benefits everyone, Plott says. It is a money-saver for the TSA, which otherwise would have to pay to store and destroy the items. It is a boost to the small general fund of Boulder City, which has a total budget of $18 million for its 15,000 residents. And it connects people everywhere with cheap scissors and knives.

The TSA is not really concerned with what eventually becomes of the banned items its screeners find on passengers or in their carry-ons, agency spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin said.

"We just need to get rid of those items," she said. "It's tons and tons of stuff and we would need to store it. They haul it off, and what they do with it is their business."

Many states have a surplus agency that takes the items and decides what to do with them. Some hold actual (as opposed to virtual) auctions. One donates scissors to local schools.

The TSA's banned items list has been loosened since 9/11, with butter knives and round-tipped scissors now allowed. Still banned are some items that would seem to be an obvious no-no.

"I've seen chainsaws, I've seen frying pans, I've seen a mock grenade," Peppin said.

Plott, who got the idea for the project when he read in a news report that McCarran's items were being taken by the state of Arkansas, says he has ceased to be shocked by what he finds.

Through December 2004, the program had made a total of $85,176, according to the city. But it stands to make much more this year as constant streamlining and tweaking have made it more efficient and profitable with every passing month, Plott said.

In the first month of operation, the project netted only about $2,600. But last month, it made about $14,000, according to Plott.

By any measure, the 48-year-old Plott works hard for the money. Like his living room, his garage is crowded with boxes, as is a city-owned storage shed. A city office is piled floor to ceiling with shipping boxes and shelves of plastic-bagged auction lots.

Last year, Plott quit his full-time job as a security supervisor at the Hoover Dam to focus on the auctions. He still works part-time for Boulder City, managing the city's fitness center. Plott says he works 14-hour days, seven days a week.

He flies to each airport himself about once a month, hauling the loot back to Boulder City in a rental car. Although he has made nearly $50,000 through the project, he points out that he still has to pay taxes on that money, and he says he has invested about $5,000 of his own money in costs such as digital camera equipment.

The city council is set to review the program in the coming months to decide how to proceed.

"I'm sure they will want to go forward; whether it will be with me, or with the same payment schedule, I don't know," Plott said.

"If it starts making $200,000 or $300,000 a year, I'm not crazy -- I don't see myself still making half of that," he added.

Boulder City spokeswoman Rose Ann Miele said city officials were happy with the program so far.

"I don't know that it's going to be changed in any way," she said. "(The council is) only going to negotiate what percentage Mike gets."

Plott says all the feedback he has gotten has been positive.

"All the people I've talked to are thrilled to death," he said. "The city is very happy. I mean, they don't have to do anything but take the money."