In Long Beach, CA, a cart retrieval service picks up an average of 500 carts per week.
In an effort to motivate retailers to curb the ever-increasing problem of shopping cart theft (and subsequent dumping of carts), the town of Federal Way, WA, near Seattle, has a 'cart jail'. Town workers and people on community service retreive abandoned carts and impound them, charging retail cart owners like Albertsons, WalMart and Target (as well as smaller, 'Mom and Pop' grocers) $25 per cart to bail them out. If the owner has not picked up the cart withing 14 days, or opted for the $67 delivery, the carts are destroyed and a bill of $50 per cart is sent to the owner.