San Francisco’s bomb squad rushed to a Cole Valley street corner Friday after trash collectors stumbled upon a grenade during a scheduled pickup.

Police and firefighters also responded to 17th and Shrader streets after receiving a report of a “suspicious device” at 10:17 a.m., said Officer Giselle Linnane, a police spokeswoman.

It’s not clear whether the grenade was live.

The scene was cleared around 11:30 a.m.

Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, said it’s “very rare” for the recycling company to come across explosives.

“I’ve been here 25 years, and this is the second time I’ve heard that word, grenade,” Reed said. “I believe it was 10 to 15 years ago. And I don’t know if the previous incident was a real thing or not.”

Recology’s crew discovered the grenade while going through belongings that had been left out for a scheduled pickup, Reed said.

“I don’t know if it was real or not, but we do not handle anything dangerous like that. It’s just not part of what we do,” Reed said. “We handle bottles, cans, paper, compost or if people have household batteries.”

Police did not say whether they knew how the grenade ended up there.

Josh Koehn is a San Francisco Chronicle assistant metro editor. Email: josh.koehn@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @josh_koehn