[ad_1]
When I was in the fifth grade, my grandpa took me to my school’s dumpster. “You know the Coca-Colas and water bottles that people throw out?” he asked me in Mandarin. I nodded, spotting two empty Poland Spring bottles lying on top of a nearby garbage pile. He swiftly plucked them out and stowed them away in a plastic bag. “That’s 10 cents. Your turn,” he said, smiling as I ran to another trash can. Seconds later, I emerged victorious, holding a Pepsi can over my head as if it were a trophy.
My grandpa was a canner, someone who collects recyclable containers on the street and redeems them for money. In New York State, canning is possible because of the Returnable Container Act, passed in 1982, which calls for a 5-cent deposit on glass, metal and plastic beverage containers. Though the law was meant to reduce litter and encourage recycling, it has also had the effect of offering a lifeline to some New Yorkers. A new bill that is pending in the State Legislature offers a chance for us to significantly improve the welfare of canners like my grandpa.
There are an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 canners in New York City. Many of them turn to canning because they are unable to earn a steady income for a variety of reasons — because they are homeless, unemployed or recent immigrants like my grandpa was.
It’s easy to see canning as sad and degrading. When I was in the fifth grade, I remember the looks of disgust and bewilderment on my classmates’ faces when I told them that picking through the trash was actually quite profitable. I quickly learned not to offer this observation. Nonetheless, I was raised to respect family members, especially my elders, so I was never embarrassed by the fact that my grandpa was a canner.
On the streets of New York, though, my grandpa endured scathing looks. And some of his family members looked down on him for doing work they saw as dirty and indecent.
But there’s a difference between being desperate and being pitiable. Though it’s no one’s first choice as a profession, canning offered my grandpa a chance to build a life and a family. He always took pride in his work.
When my grandparents immigrated from China to the United States, not knowing English barred them from most work, and they had to rely on what little money they could earn through odd jobs or, eventually, canning. Some people collect cans to supplement their savings and support their family members. My grandpa remembers spending hours every day picking up bottles just to earn enough money so that his family could sleep with full stomachs.
His top priority was making sure that my dad could attend college without taking out loans — a feat he was able to accomplish. Even after landing a construction job, my grandpa continued to can for 30 years, until the start of the pandemic, as a way of helping to pay the bills.
Since the Returnable Container Act was passed four decades ago, the benefits of canning have been dwindling. Five cents today is worth only a third as much as it was in 1982. To earn just $5, barely enough to afford a meal, you have to collect 100 containers. That’s 100 instances of finding and collecting, not to mention carrying everything you’ve gathered and finding a redemption center. Many stores also impose limits on the number and type of container that can be redeemed, requiring canners to travel to more than one place to unload their haul.
The new bill would double the bottle deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents, as well as expand the kinds of containers that are redeemable. For many canners, a greater return would mean less time on the streets and more time to devote to education, family and working toward a more stable income.
Canning is no easy task, as my grandpa regularly pointed out. He frequently brought me along to help him carry and redeem the containers we collected. As a teenager, I had little trouble walking the half-mile route, picking out recyclables, but since my grandpa was in his 70s, he would have to stop and rest regularly. “You’re lucky,” he would tell me. “When you get to my age, everything is 10 times harder.”
Increasing the deposit on containers would also most likely be a boon to recycling. In 2020, New York recycled 5.5 billion containers, with redemption rates of 64 percent. Some of this is thanks to the long hours that canners spend picking up after other people, and in 2022, the rate reached 70 percent. Still, this percentage can be improved, as demonstrated by Michigan’s 76 percent redemption rate and Oregon’s 86 percent, both of which offer 10 cents for containers. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the states with the highest redemption rates tend to have the highest deposits.
The benefits of doubling the bottle deposit are clear. It’s time to give canners the respect they deserve.
[ad_2]
Source link
