
Making a Living Collecting Cans - nthitz
http://priceonomics.com/making-a-living-collecting-cans/
======
smtddr
_> Eric Dunn of Community Recyclers does not hesitate when we ask him why the
recycling centers have closed: “Getting rid of street people by getting rid of
recycling centers is the bottom line. It’s basically class warfare concerns.”_

We need to start showing real compassion for each other. Removing one of the
few legit ways the poor can generate money is not the right thing to do. They
need help. Recycling helps the environment AND the poor! How many things are
there in the world like that? Closing them down because the bike-riding,
starbucks-sipping, smartphone-talking, organic-eating fancy & polished crowd
feel uncomfortable around the poor is selfish IMHO. One day, we won't be able
to sweep the unpleasant truths of our society underneath the rug anymore. What
then? Oh, actually, I know. They'll make it illegal to be poor, so they'll all
be in jail. Thus solving the problem __ONCE AND FOR ALL__.

~~~
wonnage
This is shortsighted. Why not just give them money? We already spend money on
waste management to collect the stuff.

But no, we can't, then it'd be a handout. And we, even community-minded people
like Eric Dunn, can't stomach the thought of just giving people money. So we
make them do pointless make-work, like collecting bottles.

The middle class people you illogically rage against are the ones funding the
poor indirectly (and convolutedly) through their waste. Why not cut out the
misery and give them the money directly? IMO it's less respectful, more
demeaning, to insist a street person dig through trash to collect a bunch of
cans before we give them their daily bread.

~~~
sliverstorm
Collecting bottles is hardly pointless. Recycling is a positive, both for
"recycle" and "clean up bottle trash" and clearly some people are not
motivated enough by the current CRV taxes. You could think of it as
specialization.

~~~
kansface
No one cares if they collect litter. People don't want hobos rummaging through
their garbage. Stealing all of the bottles out of recycling bins is also not
accomplishing anything.

~~~
tomsaffell
>People don't want hobos rummaging through their garbage

I have no objection to them doing so at my house in SF. They few I've spoken
to about it seemed very nice.

>Stealing all of the bottles out of recycling bins...

Are you sure it's stealing? AFAIK, it's only stealing if the bin is on/at the
curb. I believe it's otherwise legal.

>...out of recycling bins is also not accomplishing anything.

The question is: is the system as a whole accomplishing anything? The removal
of cans from residential bins is the unintended consequence of a wider rule,
which has (according to the article) reduced litter levels in CA considerably.
All systems have unintended consequences. What alternative system do you
propose that reduces litter and increases recycling rates? What side effects
does it have?

Finally (I'm going out on a limb here): I don't think it's our place to judge.
What I see when I look out the window is a person who has the determination
and energy to push a heavy cart up a hill on a cold night, and yet a person
who has -- despite those traits, which society values -- found themselves in
an unenviable life position right now. When I see that paradox my reaction is
to allow them their wish. Not because I do or don't approve of the system, but
because I approve or hard work, and applying yourself, and because the very
existence of their paradox assures me that I don't know enough to do anything
other than make sure I'm not getting in their way.

~~~
dllthomas
Even if it's not stealing (and I don't see any reason to actually call it
that), it's nonetheless pretty close to pointless to move remove bottles and
cans from recycling bins that will be picked up by a truck anyway into a
shopping cart and drag them across town. It may be a slightly negative side-
effect of an on-balance worthwhile policy, but it's odd to consider it
positive when there are better ways to help people.

~~~
warfangle
> nonetheless pretty close to pointless to move remove bottles and cans from
> recycling bins that will be picked up by a truck anyway

Not pointless: less curbside pickup volume per truck means you can run with
less residential-serving trucks (less time trundling back and forth to a big
recycling distribution center).

It's a kind of ingenious way to decrease spending on municipal recycling
collection, levying it on the consumers of the products apt for recycling
directly. I actually wish the deposit were a little bit larger. What they do
is enormously backbreaking and demoralizing work.

~~~
kansface
The trucks will just be going to the new distribution center instead of the
old one. Also, the article points out that this doesn't decrease spending
since the city would otherwise make the money from the stolen cans.

~~~
warfangle
When you put refuse to the curb, it's generally regarded as discarded. That
word -- stolen -- doesn't mean what you think it means.

~~~
dllthomas
If the collection is partly subsidized by the presence of recyclables in that
refuse, does that change things? I don't know enough about trash collection to
know to what degree that's the case (I would expect it to vary by
municipality).

------
gogo5
I live 2 blocks away from this recycling center and visit Safeway almost
everyday for either food or getting off the Muni.

It's terrible.

Just a few of my headaches:

• Smells absolutely terrible

• When walking down Castro with my girlfriend we use the other side after many
overly aggressively slurs from the slew of bums that hang out by this heap.

• It draws numerous crews of drifters that recycle cans then binge on the
spoils on the steps of safeway. Fights break out weekly.

• It creates a "hobo highway" in which my female friends now avoid because it
is filled with bums. This looks like rape alley at night.

• Bums bring their dogs to wait in line and they shit all over the sidewalk.
That was awesome to wipe off in the morning.

• The really crazy bums like to ride their carts down market street flying
through red lights, which I was almost hit by last month.

It might be cool to support the ongoing of recycling centers so less fortunate
people have a way to make money but try living next to the place before
writing an article about how you think its so unhippie of San Francisco.

~~~
justin
I used to live a block and a half away, and I still live 4 blocks away. I
agree, it's not the most desirable thing to have in a neighborhood.

However, the amount of NIMBYism and mental gymnastics that goes on in SF is
infuriating. The same citizens who support a government that spends $200m a
year on homelessness are up in arms when services for the poor appear in their
neighborhoods? The hypocrisy in SF is incredible.

~~~
xyzzyz
_The same citizens who support a government that spends $200m a year on
homelessness are up in arms when services for the poor appear in their
neighborhoods? The hypocrisy in SF is incredible._

I don't understand your amazement. It makes perfect sense for me. You want to
pay money so that you don't have bums in your backyard. We do that in Europe,
and works pretty well -- nowhere I've seen homelessness as rampant as in SF or
Seattle.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, the thinking is generally "let's give stuff to the poor because _we 're
such nice people_", not "let's pay off the poor to darken some other
doorstep". This is the mindset behind your parent comment. If you want to not
have bums in your backyard, you can do that much cheaper and more effectively
than by paying them to stay in your backyard.

------
ianstallings
If you like this story I definitely recommend watching _Carts of Darkness_ :
[http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/carts-of-
darkness/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/carts-of-darkness/)

It's about the homeless in Vancouver, who not only collect cans for money, but
then ride their shopping carts down mountain roads to get to the recycling
centers. It tells a story about homelessness in a very intriguing way and the
action scenes are pretty intense.

------
rickdale
Modern waste management facilities can actually sort out cans and bottles from
the other trash. For the cans they use electromagnet while the trash is on the
belt that makes the cans jump farther than the garbage. For the bottles,
something about the speed of the belt and an air pump. At any rate, better to
get these people the help they need and out of the trash.

Source: modern marvels episode on wastemanagement and actually got to take a
field trip in college and when I saw the cans jumping I was pumped to have see
that episode of mm.

------
donpdonp
The secondary effects of the bottle deposit plus curbside recycling are
visible in my town, Portland Oregon. I know a homeless person who survives on
can recycling and I see many other people doing the same work of pulling cans
out of curb-side recycle bins and delivering them to supermarket recycle
centers for cash. He works hard at it and while I'm not sure of the dollar
amount, it appears to be a significant source of income.

Intentionally creating these secondary effects to increase the options for
people to work outside of 'traditional employment' for even paltry sums has a
lot of potential.

------
ultrasaurus
Claiming that "it’s a neat system that rewards litter reduction" involves
overlooking the non-trivial amount of garbage cans that get dumped out on the
street to make collecting the cans easier.

------
vellum
In Buenos Aires, they’re called cartoneros. At around sunset, they roll in
from the surrounding (poorer) neighborhoods, and start stacking cardboard in
the streets. It’s very surreal. They recently formed a collective and are
trying to get official recognition from the government.

[http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/argentina-cartoneros-
wast...](http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/argentina-cartoneros-waste-
pickers-economy-government-recognition)

------
car
The onus for taking back empties should be on the individual stores that sold
them. So basically a change in law.

In Europe customers can return their own empties when they go shopping, by
dropping the bottles into fully automated machines that dispenses the refund.
So they get to benefit, and the problem is distributed.

In California, in my experience, the scarcity and sheer nastiness of return
centers keeps most individual consumer from returns.

My one time attempt of returning empties in California took three trips to the
distant and frequently unmanned center, and finally yielded a voucher only
valid in the supermarket on which's premises the center was located. No
thanks.

Edit: After my post I found this gem in the comments, enough said!:

 _A Functioning CRV System

These dynamics are fascinating to me because I've lived in both San Francisco
and Michigan. Michigan is one of the states with the highest redemption values
for cans at 10¢ each, plus the cost of living (and thus salaries) are much
lower than in San Francisco, so each can returned makes a much bigger impact
on everyone's finances. The result was EVERYONE returned their own cans, every
family from the lower class to the wealthier ones has a trash can in the
kitchen and "a place where they put cans".

It was shocking to me when I moved out to California and nobody saved their
cans - the culture in Michigan is that throwing away cans is like throwing
away money. Then I realized why after I tried to return a bag full - in
Michigan, almost every major grocery store has machines that process can
returns - completely self service, at almost every grocery store. The grocery
stores use it to get customers in the store, and recycling is organized and
incented. In California, when I tried to return that first bag, I had to go to
a recycling center that was nowhere close to where I lived and in the middle
of nowhere. I waited inline behind 20 or so homeless people, and the facility
was filthy. In Michigan, the machines counted every individual can and gave
you a receipt readout with precisely how many cans, glass bottles, and plastic
bottles you turned in. In California, they sloppily weighed your bag and
handed you cash. It was way more difficult to turn in the cans and it was less
accurate and half the value per can. The whole system felt like a rip off &
waste of time.

The crazy thing is what people perceive the point of the can redemption system
to be. In Michigan, everybody gets that its supposed to get people to recycle,
and it clearly works. Its like an easy way to save a little spending money or
get some cash off your grocery bill every couple weeks. In California, a lot
of the people I talked to about it thought it was a program to help the
homeless, because they were so used to the trashcan foraging activity. I don't
know how to respond to the idea of closing recycling centers, but having lived
in Michigan where the can redemption system is functioning, it feels like
keeping recycling centers open to help homeless people have an income is
masking the harder problem, which is what do we do to help these people get
work and stop relying on entrepreneurial trash collection as a living?_

~~~
protomyth
> The onus for taking back empties should be on the individual stores that
> sold them. So basically a change in law.

The store bought them from someone else, so why ding the middle person? The
last owner should deal with them.

~~~
car
Because the 'middle person' is making a profit, and has to share the
responsibility to keep this stuff out of landfills. Hence the CRV system.

~~~
protomyth
So is the original supplier, and the only reason it is stocked is the person
buying it. Perhaps taking some actual personal responsibility would be a good
thing instead of legislating it on someone else.

~~~
car
If personal responsibility would work, we wouldn't need any laws. It's either
stick or carrot, as in this case.

~~~
protomyth
I don't believe in punishing a merchant for the sins of his/her customers.

~~~
polymatter
do you also not believe in merchants collecting Sales Tax?

~~~
protomyth
That is a bit of an odd jump since the transaction takes place at the merchant
where recycling doesn't.

The merchant is part of and in control of the transaction generating the sale
tax, but has no say on where the product goes after the transaction. That part
is all on the customer.

------
anatari
I'm confused with priceonomics. They seem to be in the business of blogging
now? The link to their product is a tiny thing at the bottom.

------
meritt
Growing up in rural Oregon, collecting cans & bottles was my entire 8-year-old
income. $0.05 per container went a long way.

~~~
SeppoErviala
I think one of the reasons for returnable cans and bottles is to teach
children about money and work. Many people I know once ran the can business in
their household as children.

EDIT: This requires grocery stores to take return bottles, I'm not sure if I
would let my children to a hobo-filled recycling center.

~~~
thaumasiotes
My brother and sister (both 10) "run the can business" in their household now,
but what that actually means is that my dad saves the cans and drives them to
the recycling center when they think they have enough. What exactly is the
lesson to be drawn about money and work?

(I can tell you that the reason that system obtains in the household is that
my mother feels very strongly that recycling is the moral thing to do, but I'm
still struggling as to what lessons a child would draw even if their parents
wanted them to)

~~~
SeppoErviala
If you show initiative and return the cans you can obtain money that would not
be available otherwise. Pretty straightforward in my mind.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, again, in my family's model of returning cans, there's no initiative
involved -- they don't do the work of collecting and they're not responsible
for getting the cans to the recycling center; they just go along for the ride
and get handed some money.

If hypothetically they were supposed to be responsible for returning the cans,
they'd quickly discover that they don't have access to many cans, _and_ that
they have absolutely no way of transporting them to a recycling center, or
even going to a recycling center without bringing any cans.

My sister visited me over the summer a couple years ago, when she was 8, and I
let her hold on to the jiao I received as change (US equivalent value: roughly
1.5 cents to the jiao). This made her happy (especially when she noticed a
chinese mother doing the same with her child), but I didn't think it was some
big project to teach a child about money; I did it because it made her happy
and the quantity of money was too trivial for me to worry about her screwing
up. It was trivial for her too; she never saved up enough to buy anything
(most likely candidate: a roll of mentos, which would have cost 20 jiao. Turns
out it's kind of inconvenient to carry around dozens of tiny coins.).

Anyway, as far as I can see, pretty much the only initiative a child _can_
show is to pester their parents into recycling the cans for them. That doesn't
differ much, in my mind, from just pestering the parents into giving them
money.

~~~
SeppoErviala
Our families and countries work differently.

This scenario doesn't work if the only place to return cans is a recycling
center that has no other function and is located at a far away place or if the
monetary amount received from cans is trivial. It doesn't work too well either
if a child can just pester for money instead of having a fixed allowance +
bonuses for work.

In Finland the return amount is currently 0.1-0.4€ per can/bottle and one can
return them to the nearest grocery store. For me that was some serious pocket
money - even a few bottles could buy some candy.

And it wasn't about pestering my parents to go to the store, more like tagging
along when they went. I still had to carry the cans (or at least carry as much
as I could if there were a lot) and return them to the machine myself - very
different from just getting money handed over.

Anyway, my personal experience from my country of residence is that returning
bottles is a good way to make pocket money especially if you can monopolize
bottles from your own household and you have poor income.

------
danielharan
Instead of trying to criminalize this, it should be seen as a first rung to
get people reintegrated into society. The people that pull a night shift are
demonstrating amazing work ethic.

~~~
DanBC
Some of the people pulling night shifts are unable to integrate into society
because of drug or alcohol problems, or because of stigma against people with
mental illness, or because of learned helplessness.

There's not much difference between going through trash to get soda cans or
being the guy who stacks the dishwashing machine, except that dishwasher guy
loses the job if he doesn't turn up whereas the can-gathering guy just loses a
night's wages.

EDIT: But I do strongly agree with your post. Criminalising this seems wrong
headed - these people are helpful to society and are working, and we should be
thinking of ways to help them.

------
kalleboo
> _If customers ask, supermarkets must either redeem cans themselves or pay a
> fine of $100 per day - as must all stores and cafes in the area._

It sounds like this is mainly a question of enforcement - and the willpower in
the city to back that enforcement. Here in Sweden we have no law forcing
stores to take back their cans, but I don't think I've ever seen a supermarket
however small without a recycle vending machine. Then again, we don't have the
homeless problem SF does.

~~~
mjn
Are you sure there's no law in Sweden? In Denmark, any store that sells more
than a certain number of bottles has to have one of the reverse-vending
machines to take them back and repay the deposit.

~~~
kalleboo
I assumed there was, but I googled it and there isn't.
[https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=panta+f...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=panta+flaskor+lagar&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=pantflaskor+skyldighet+butik&rls=en)

------
SeppoErviala
In Finland, one gets 0.15€ per can returned and slightly less/more for
different kinds of bottles. It is very easy to return these since every
grocery store has a return machine and one can just take the money without
buying anything.

The consequence of this is that some people patrol the streets and collect
every returnable can they can find just like in this article. However, during
summers it seems to be very lucrative business as many people go to city parks
to enjoy the sun and some beer. Very few people bother to collect their own
cans since one can just toss the can and be sure that someone will collect it
within minutes.

I've noticed that the can collecting business is somewhat organized during the
prime season. Major parks seem to have groups of people (sometimes quite
young, children even) who try to monopolize the can collecting in each park.
Periodically there is a car that takes all their cans presumably to a bulk
return center. None of these people are ethnic finns.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems horrible that some people venture
off from one country to pick up the thrash of others in another country. OTOH
the trash problem is reduced and we cannot interfere with the free movement of
people within EU.

------
PaulHoule
When energy prices were high in the late 1970s, my dad and I went out on
evenings and weekends collecting cans. At the time it was profitable to do
this without any deposit, and we made $200 (in less inflated dollars) on a
good week. We made enough money to buy two aluminum bicycles, as well as many
other things.

------
bluedino
I live in a fairly rural area of Michigan and there are a few guys who I see
biking 30-40 miles a day picking up cans, 12 months out of the year.

In SF you could make a ton more money just sitting on a corner with a sign
asking for money. Especially if you get a spot near a MUNI/BART stop.

~~~
prawn
Wonder if any homeless setup a stand/bag in a high-traffic area and ask for
donations of empty cans/bottles? Put up a little "recycling service" sign.

------
tankm0de
I lived 1 block from this recycling center for 4 years. It attracts nefarious
sort of homeless who among other pleasantries, defecate on sidewalks, break-in
to parked cars, yell violently at each other and passerbys (probably due to
mental illness of varying severity), and maintain packs of un-domesticated
pit-bulls. I am pro-recycling but the patrons of this center are a danger to
the community and that is why it is closing and should be closed. NIMBYism
takes on a different meaning when your city allows violent, mentally-ill
homeless to do as they wish on the streets w/o proper care. I think the
recycling policy issue here is sort of tangential.

~~~
jarek
> NIMBYism takes on a different meaning when your city allows violent,
> mentally-ill homeless to do as they wish on the streets w/o proper care.

Well, it's a good thing closing one "recycling center" will go a long way
towards fixing that problem in San Francisco.

------
parasight
It always makes me sad when I see people rummage through the dumpsters in
front of my house. Here in Germany most I see doing this are older people.
Some of them could be my grand parents. I know nothing about them but old
people should not have to rummage through my litter to make a living. It is
simply embarrassing. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world
still I have the impression that there are more and more people rummaging
through litter.

We can shoot people on the moon, have a space station orbiting our planet, and
we can heal once fatal diseases. Is poverty really such a tricky problem to
solve?

------
njharman
I use to take recycling to that very spot (in banner image)! more than 20
years ago. Which I would never have remembered without seeing that picture.
Human pattern recognition / memory recall is neat!

------
frogpelt
If you're that poor, drink tap water and don't buy beer and soda. You'll save
way more that way than you could possibly make recycling.

Here's another idea, don't accept it. Don't settle for poverty. One of the
main problems I have with welfare systems is that it causes people who don't
have to, to settle for being poor. If you just accept it, you'll stay that
way. (I realize the improbability that someone so poor is reading this.)

~~~
pault
You are a 40 year old mother of three children that has just been divorced and
has been out of the labor market for 15 years. You have only a high school
diploma and no marketable job skills. To make matters worse, you don't live
near any major population centers, and without savings you can't afford to
move. What do you do? It's important to recognize the extremely difficult
situations people get stuck in when every disadvantage is compounding. There's
only so much a stiff upper lip can do. The competition for regular employment
at this level is fierce, and compensation is just enough to keep you from
improving your situation. You can reasonably argue that this person has made a
lifetime of poor decisions, but suggesting that people should simply "not
settle for it" is not a solution.

~~~
frogpelt
It's neat how you picked an example that doesn't apply to my point.

I fully understand the difficult situation people get "stuck" in. The reason
people are "stuck" is many times because no one is telling or showing them
that there are ways out. They are simply mailing them a check to hold them
over until the next check. But I know more than a handful of people who got
out of the ghetto and welfare situations and it wasn't a government program
that pulled them out. There was community help, like churches, for instance.
But in almost every case they bootstrapped their way out. They started by
deciding to be honest. They accepted responsibility. They listened to good
advice.

When flat broke, what are you going to lose by moving? What do you have to
move? Not much. Try something, anything.

My overarching point is that welfare handouts hurt more people than they help
in the long term. They create reliance instead of independence.

EDIT: As I thought about this a bit more, I realized your scenario and my
point are not that far apart. The 40 year old woman with a high school diploma
and 3 kids in your example may not be able to change her own circumstances
that easily but she has three little minds that she can mold day after day
about rising above those circumstances. Instead, what we usually see is
poverty passed on to the next generation. If she accepts poverty as a way of
life she is more likely to pass the mindset on to her kids.

