Contraband is put to good uses

Ever wonder what happens to all those items passengers drop into checkpoint barrels?
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
CONCORD, N.H. -- Did you kiss your corkscrew goodbye at Boston's Logan International Airport? Surrender your Swiss Army knife at Providence's T.F. Green Airport? Take leave of your trowel at Connecticut's Bradley International? Relinquish your rolling pin at New Hampshire's Manchester-Boston Regional?
If so, the odds are good that John Supry has the items. Or at least he had them before he sold them at rock-bottom prices for the greater good of the Granite State. And yes, people have tried -- and often failed -- to carry rocks on board aircraft.
"We get a lot of rocks at Logan," said Supry, manager of a state agency that handles federal and state surplus material as well as items surrendered at some New England airports. And they are surrendered, not seized, insists the Transportation Security Administration.
"TSA does not confiscate items at the checkpoint; the items are voluntarily abandoned," said TSA Midwest public affairs manager Lara Uselding in an e-mail.
In any event, your loss at airport security screening at the aforementioned New England airports is New Hampshire's gain to the tune of about 26,000 per year.
Where money goes
New Hampshire handled only a fraction of the 9,835,349 passenger possessions turned over to the TSA during the first eight months of this year, but the revenue generated helps support the state's surplus program and defrays the cost of federal surplus equipment distributed to state and local agencies.
"It's worked out better than I thought," said Supry [rhymes with soo-dry], 52, sitting in his office on a former dairy farm outside Concord on a recent afternoon. A 25-year veteran of New Hampshire's surplus services, he admits he had his doubts about two years ago when he began collecting swag snagged by airport security.
"I didn't think it was worth our time after the first time -- there were just so many scissors, so many scissors," he said, shaking his head. He blanched at the memory of handling bushels and bushels of scissors -- up to 6,000 pounds a month of them from Logan alone -- before the ban on manicure scissors, small screwdrivers and similar items was lifted in December 2005.
Since then, scissors have been eclipsed in volume by lighters -- 37,000 per day around the country or about 80 percent of all items collected, according to the TSA -- but generally they, like other hazardous materials, are destroyed and not handled by state surplus agents.
Some examples
What states do deal with -- a lot -- are Swiss Army and similar pocketknives. "They're the next most popular things other than scissors and corkscrews," said Supry, noting that they are almost invariably red. At the moment, he has 15 40-pound boxes of the knives. He sells them for about 300 per box.
Most are blank or bear the name of a company. A few are personalized. Martha Cruz and Howard Watkins, wherever you are, be advised that John Supry has your Swiss Army knives.
Some of the stuff is new and still in its original packaging. A rolling pin painted with chickens and something scrawled in indecipherable French still bears its 19.99 price tag, but it will go for chicken feed.
Other items clearly have seen better days. In Supry's inventory is a power drill, literally in pieces, that someone tried to take onto a plane. He's also seen rusty tools, soldering guns, jumper cables, shock absorbers, brake pads, used car parts and, sadly, many ornate knives used by brides and grooms to cut their wedding cakes.
"There's always bushels of corkscrews. I never realized people drank so much on vacation," said Supry, leading the way through one of the former dairy barns that make up the surplus program's complex on farmland that once belonged to a mental hospital, just a few miles from the gold-domed state Capitol. A big box containing dozens of corkscrews and a smattering of unmatched knives goes for 20.
"I guess people just don't think a golf club is a weapon," he said, looking over sporting goods that included two golf clubs, two pool cues, a cricket bat, a lacrosse stick, a hockey stick and assorted baseball bats, including small souvenir Red Sox bats. "Always a lot of souvenir baseball bats at Logan," he added. "Once in a while I find a Yankees one, but not too often."
Though he wasn't sure it fit in the sporting goods category, Supry pointed out a well-worn 6-foot leather bullwhip. He also found certain abandoned apparel somewhat stymieing. "There's a lot of studded leather items. I say a lot. It's more than I would expect. You know, belts, bracelets," he said, his voice trailing off.
"We get all kinds of toy guns. I don't know if they are kids' or not," he mused, adding, "Belt buckles shaped like a gun aren't allowed."
Where items end up
Supry sells the goods to the public at the surplus complex on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. State agencies get the verboten booty free from the airports; in exchange, the airports pay nothing for disposal of the items.
Howard said he generally tries to distribute abandoned items like multipurpose tools and pocketknives to local police and fire departments and boxes of scissors to schools before they're consigned to auction.
"There is some good that happens from this process, and certainly the things we give away ... is one of them," he said.
And, in case anyone wonders in the wake of last summer's film "Snakes on a Plane," Supry and his colleagues don't handle live items abandoned at checkpoints. Anyway, according to the TSA's Uselding, "Snakes are not allowed on board aircraft."