[HN Gopher] My parents collect cans for a living
___________________________________________________________________
My parents collect cans for a living
Author : emailed
Score : 411 points
Date : 2021-12-19 19:17 UTC (1 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.thenation.com)
| bluedino wrote:
| Michigander here. One of the very few states in the USA with a
| bottle deposit. 10 cents per can/bottle. It's actually prohibited
| to put a bottle or can in a landfill here.
|
| It's very common to see people digging through trash cans and
| such, collecting bottles and cans to return for deposit. We have
| two garbage cans in the garage at home, when they both fill up we
| will take them back to the store. It's a inconvenience to go to
| the grocery store, wait in line for 20 minutes, then feed all the
| returnables into the machine, wait for the store staff to empty
| the machine so you can finish, and then turn the ticket in for
| eight dollars.
|
| People in line become impatient and just give their bags of cans
| to anyone else in line who will take them. Then you get the odd
| bottles that aren't returnable at that store, because they don't
| sell that brand.
|
| Part of the deal is the automated machines are not very fast. In
| the old days, a clerk counted them by hand or you just gave them
| a full 12/24 pack case. There aren't many machines, either.
| Another problem is if you return them to a small convenience
| store, the staff won't give you money back, they insist on only
| store credit, not cash refund. Which I'm pretty sure is against
| the law.
|
| I have a recycle bin in my office, overflowing with empty
| aluminum cans of Monster, plastic bottles of Mt Dew, and glass
| kombucha bottles. I always tell the cleaning guy he can have
| them. There's a social stigma attached to carrying a bag of
| bottles through the office and out to my car. There might be 3 or
| 4 dollars worth in there, so who cares.
|
| Lots of charities have bottle drives, sometimes one of the
| parents will collect them for their school sports teams, and
| there's a dropoff for the local 4th of July fireworks show.
|
| Also, when COVID first started, we couldn't return bottles for
| over 6 months. This lead to some pretty impressive amounts of
| bottles being kept at peoples homes.
| downrightmike wrote:
| In Germany the machines just print out a slip of paper with a
| barcode that can be used to get cash back at the register, or
| as store credit. The machines compact the plastic, and are
| fairly quick. On your way in, you just pop them in and go
| shopping. If more states had the bottle deposit, it would be
| easier to handle.
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| It is tricky being in a community which is predominantly more
| moneyed than your family and burns a brand into poorer people
| that never goes away. Greasers and socs stay greasers and socs
| into their 90s, and then they die.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I have not thought about collecting cans in a very long time.
| Decades ago you could make a decent bit of cash collecting
| aluminum cans. It was a common past time for poor people and
| undoubtedly contributed to the very high recycle rate for
| aluminum since it was a source of income for many people. This
| was widely known, so people would often go out of their way to
| make their aluminum trash easily available to be collected. It
| was kind of low-key charity of sorts.
|
| At some point this just kind of dried up. I suspect it coincided
| with municipalities selling the rights to collect recyclables to
| waste management companies.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| It's still a thing in the third world. But it's very very low
| in income.
|
| (Maybe that's what the actual article is about, haven't read it
| yet.)
| [deleted]
| tschwimmer wrote:
| In the San Francisco Bay area, collecting cans is still very
| common among the homeless. In some parts of SF people will dig
| through your recycling (and garbage) every garbage day for
| recycling. Additionally, many public garbage cans have a semi-
| open section at the top which I have seen used for disposing of
| cans. I don't know if it's intentionally designed that way, but
| it's much easier for anyone to get the cans from this section
| vs the trash barrel itself.
| giarc wrote:
| Most garbage cans (at least those in dense areas) in my town
| of Calgary have a little shelf along the top that can hold
| cans/bottles. I can't see them being used for anything other
| than holding cans for collection. In Alberta, there is a
| deposit for all beverage containers (milk, juice, beer, wine,
| pop/cola etc) so there are a lot of people that collect for a
| living. Where I grew up (Ontario), there is only a deposit on
| beer and wine, not juice/milk/pop etc.
| BrianHenryIE wrote:
| I keep my cans and bottles separate from paper etc and place
| them at the top of the wheelie bin when I put out the
| recycling.
| asdff wrote:
| At my college campus it was traditional to just throw empty
| cans into your yard while partying. By morning, they'd all be
| collected and gone.
| bluedino wrote:
| If you leave your trash out the night before, someone will
| come by, slit the bags open and remove anything made of
| metal. They will leave your trash in your yard.
| gs17 wrote:
| It's still sort of common in places with deposits on cans. In
| Michigan, I had a few friends growing up who did it to help
| their families. They got in trouble with the school on multiple
| occasions for digging them out of the trash, and what the
| school said implied it was that the school was profiting off
| the cans themselves. The episode of Seinfeld where they try to
| bring bottles to Michigan for the deposit always gives me a
| familiar feeling.
|
| Actually, this article is about New York, so there should be a
| deposit there too, which explains why it's feasible.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I lived in Ohio and I had friends drive their van full of
| bottles and cans up to Michigan all the time
| iancarroll wrote:
| I've always been surprised that other states do not have
| bottle returns inside stores. What I used to routinely do in
| Michigan -- bring some cans with me to the grocery store -- I
| have never done in California, since you have to travel to a
| recycling center with limited hours.
| gs17 wrote:
| I don't understand it either. It gets people to clean up
| litter and gives a lot of small handouts as rewards for
| keeping the state clean. There's probably overhead we don't
| see as consumers but it seems pretty beneficial to me.
| vidarh wrote:
| Yeah, returns in stores is what's done in Norway as well
| and while varying over time return rates have regularly
| been around 95%.
|
| It's structured as a tax on single-use containers that
| retailers can buy themselves free from based on the
| proportion they can demonstrate returns for, coupled with a
| shared recycling scheme they can join.
|
| In practice it means you can return containers wherever you
| can buy them, and most larger grocery stores have machines
| to handle returns. (In fact, the largest manufacturer of
| "reverse vending machines" for bottles is Norwegian TOMRA).
|
| Recycling rates in places without bottle returns in stores
| basically shows that just having recycling centres or even
| curb-side recycling from home is woefully insufficient if
| you're serious about dealing with plastic waste.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| > It was a common past time for poor people and undoubtedly
| contributed to the very high recycle rate for aluminum since it
| was a source of income for many people.
|
| It was not just a past time amongst people of lower economic
| means. My dad was a computer science professor and when I was a
| little kid we would go on long walks around our rural town
| collecting cans and bottles littered along the road and in
| wooded areas. He seemed kind of into the money we would get
| back from the supermarket, but I doubt he really cared about it
| that much. Maybe he was trying to teach me the value of the
| dollar/work. Maybe he was into the peaceful adventure of it. Or
| maybe he cared a tiny bit about the environment. It was
| probably a bit of all of that. Whatever it was, I remember that
| there were other people who did it too of all social classes
| that you would see at the supermarket recycling center. I'm not
| sure why people stopped. Maybe as others have pointed out,
| municipal recycling trucks have made people less enthusiastic
| about it.
| channel_t wrote:
| Can collecting has been wildly popular over here in Portland OR
| for as long as I can remember. Basically no cans that are set
| on the curb ever last long enough to get picked up by waste
| management. Typically it's homeless people who collect them but
| there's also enterprising immigrant families and seemingly
| people from other walks of life who do it, some who try to
| collect at more industrial scale by filling their cars with
| cans.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The problem is more that the nickel deposit was never really
| adjusted with inflation.
|
| A nickel in the '70s would be roughly a quarter today
| accounting for inflation, and there is certainly no state in
| the US with a deposit that high.
| stevejb wrote:
| There is also less alumnium in a can now than from the 70's,
| so it may not be as bad as is apparent.
| garmaine wrote:
| Doesn't matter. The redemption cost is paid by the consumer
| when they buy the can--it is literally added to the bill,
| like a sales tax. Any recyclable value is extra.
| dmurray wrote:
| The recycling centre's costs per ton of aluminium
| collected likely go up, though, from dealing with more
| physical cans.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| None of the deposit goes to the recycling centers in the
| US either.
|
| In the US recycling is a mostly private affair, which is
| why we saw things like bales of low-quality plastic
| getting shipped to China.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| I like these types of stories that show the harsh economic
| realities of many in America. It was not the case many years ago,
| when they could become an American citizen by working hard
| enough. Now they are servants, beholden to the corrupted members
| of our government.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > It was not the case many years ago, when they could become an
| American citizen by working hard enough.
|
| I suspect you have an overly rose-tinted view of the past.
| callmeal wrote:
| >Now they are servants, beholden to the corrupted members of
| our government.
|
| ITYM corporations. The government is desperately trying to help
| and corporate interests (in the form of Joe Manchin's blocking
| of the BBB act) are how we got to this point.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/12/joe-man...
|
| Most people have forgotten that we "solved" the ozone hole
| problem through regulation. We could have done the same for
| green house emmissions. But businesses did not want cut into
| their profits and now here we are.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| Nope, the worst thing a corporation can do is try to sell me
| something I don't want. The worst the federal govt can do to
| me is imprison me, or worse, kill me. It's time we hold these
| fascists accountable.
| pbourke wrote:
| > Nope, the worst thing a corporation can do is try to sell
| me something I don't want.
|
| I think poisoning your water supply with benzene might be a
| bit worse.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| GabeIsko wrote:
| You know the Federal government contracts out running
| prisons and the acquisition of execution materials to
| private entities right?
| callmeal wrote:
| >Nope, the worst thing a corporation can do is try to sell
| me something I don't want.
|
| How quickly we forget.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2019/10/16/the-20-year-legal-
| bat...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-
| radioacti...
|
| There's more. A lot, lot more.
| Mezzie wrote:
| The Battle of Blair Mountain. Shirtwaist Fire. Company
| towns. Sharecropping. Child Labor. Indentured servitude.
|
| Authoritarianism is the same whether it's public or
| private. It's about power and leverage.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| How do "corrupt members of the government" force these people
| to collect cans?
|
| What other job do you suggest they could be doing?
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >It was not the case many years ago, when they could become an
| American citizen by working hard enough.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozawa_v._United_States
|
| When was this magical time ?
| TomAbel wrote:
| Here is a story of a man who collected cans and bottles for cash
| and invested the money he got in the stock market, he died a
| millionaire.
|
| "Curt Degerman, known to many as "Tin Can Curt," Degerman spent
| nearly 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern
| Sweden collecting tin cans and bottles for cash. Those who passed
| him by simply assumed he was another ordinary street bum.
|
| But to the surpise of many, when Degerman died in 2008, he left
| more than $1.4 million to his cousin. In between collecting cans,
| Degerman spent a lot of time in his local library reading
| business papers and studying the stock market. "
|
| He knew stocks inside and out," said his cousin.
|
| By immersing himself in an education of thrift and smart
| investing, Degerman used his tin-can earnings to purchase mutual
| funds. He bought 124 gold bars and also expanded his cash with a
| savings account. By riding a bicycle and not having a mortgage on
| his house, his savings were made even easier.
|
| But in 2008, Degerman died of a heart attack, leaving his entire
| estate to a cousin who had visited him regularly during his last
| days. He died a millionaire."
|
| Sources:
|
| https://www.nydailynews.com/news/money/tin-collector-dies-mi...
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WHB-2895
|
| https://archive.md/kB5F4
| spaceflunky wrote:
| I remember reading some version of the story where he figured
| out what companies were on the rise by going through peoples
| trash. Like he would make note of what people were actually
| buying so he had an inside track.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I'm guessing that the cans in this story are paid for by weight
| rather than the 10-20 cent deposit/refund you get where I am?
|
| How much is that worth? With the deposit, collecting cans can be
| a fairly lucrative side line for children and the retired - you
| often see people collecting cans from bus stop trashbins and at
| music festivals or park events there will often be people going
| around with large trash offering to dispose of empty beer cans.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| At 10-20 cents deposit it's not really "lucrative" enough to be
| a good income for anyone, I think you're lucky if you can make
| more than minimum wage doing it.
|
| We have a similar deposit where I live (Vancouver), and a few
| times I've collected all my cans and dropped them off at the
| deposit center. The centers are in inconvenient areas, and I've
| dropped off maybe 400 cans, which is a pretty full car load,
| but takes almost 2 hours with driving and sorting. So about
| $20/hr not counting expenses like gas, wear and tear, and the
| car itself (many people doing this do so without a vehicle
| though).
|
| And these were cans I had collected myself at a place I was
| living. If you consider going from house to house and checking
| dumpsters for the cans, it takes a lot more time. If you have a
| truck and 2 people and manage to grab all the cans on
| collection day, you might make a bit more than minimum wage,
| but outside of collection day I think you'd be better off with
| a minimum wage job.
|
| I suspect a lot of people doing this have other obstacles
| preventing them from holding a job though, which is why
| something they can do on their own time is worthwhile to them.
|
| For some more context, I think McDonalds starts at $18/hr here
| and even that isn't really enough to afford living comfortably
| in Vancouver. Also, most deposits are 10 cents, but I think
| some larger glass containers are up to 20 cents.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| With the caveat that I am pulling this from very old memory,
| the deposit on cans is still more like 5 cents. If you
| collected them in bulk then you were paid by weight, which was
| discounted on the presumption of non-aluminum mass (fluid,
| dirt, etc), and some people would try to sandbag their cans. It
| wasn't a lot of money by any means but it wasn't nothing
| either.
|
| There was a lot more can litter back then, so it was easier to
| collect. A side effect of aluminum recycling is that most of
| that litter was cleaned up by can collectors.
| Warrenio wrote:
| This story is set in Brooklyn, so the author's parents are
| likely benefiting from the five cent deposit on every beverage
| can sold in the state of New York [0].
|
| Can deposits are a great idea, in my opinion. Why don't more
| places have them? They give people an incentive to recycle (so
| they get their deposit back), and if they choose to litter,
| whoever cleans up after them gets the money.
|
| [0]: https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/bev/bevcnt.htm
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Because it obfuscates costs and creates complexity that can
| cause more issues, such as people raiding garbage bins.
|
| It would be more straightforward if government paid for
| cleanup of litter and it becomes a part of the spending
| budget where the amount of spend can be tracked.
|
| And teach children not to litter and cultivate that sense of
| responsibility for one's environment.
|
| And prosecute littering.
| dangus wrote:
| In the end, the deposit is a simpler and low-cost low-
| effort solution. It's probably the best example of a policy
| where a small change to law can impact behavior greatly.
|
| If you go to a city with a plastic bag tax, you'll notice
| that far fewer people are using plastic bags. Cashiers
| won't automatically drop a single item into a bag, they'll
| ask if you need them and even when they do, they'll use
| fewer bags.
|
| The funny thing is, a policy like a 7 cent bag tax is
| incredibly negligible. That means your big-ass shopping
| trip with 20 plastic bags is costing you $1.40 if you
| choose to go that route. You could absolutely choose to do
| that every time you shop for groceries and it wouldn't
| affect your finances. But that's the thing, people see a
| financial incentive, and no matter how small, they take it.
| Similarly, that's why the can/bottle deposit is so
| effective.
|
| I read this article recently about giving people a tiny
| monetary incentive to go to the gym got people to go back:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/well/move/exercise-
| motiva...
|
| Surely, these gym members spent more money on gas to just
| get themselves to the gym in the first place!
|
| Prosecution of littering is impractical, "it doesn't
| scale," as one might say. It's nearly impossible to catch
| that crime as it occurs.
|
| I'm not even sure that "raiding garbage bins" is an issue.
| I guess sometimes people digging through garbage make a
| mess, but every time I see this happen in real life the
| people doing it are relatively respectful and make sure the
| trash stays in the bin.
|
| Local governments already _do_ pay for the cleanup of
| litter, but the problem is that litter is just
| _everywhere_. It 's a losing numbers game. You'd have to
| hire a literal army to keep it in check.
|
| By the way, can/bottle deposits don't cost the taxpayer
| money! It's a tax you pay on the drinks when you buy them,
| and you get it back when you return them. That's why it's
| called a _deposit_.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| There was an app called GymPact that charged you (an
| amount you determined) if you didn't go to the gym as you
| agreed - I think it went as rewards to the people who did
| show
| dbavaria wrote:
| The deposit is generally worth more than the scrap price for
| the cans. For example, NY can deposit is $0.05 [0] while the
| average scrap price is $0.13/lbs [1]
|
| [0] https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02477
|
| [1] https://www.scrapmonster.com/scrap-yards/prices/new-
| york/sta...
| sien wrote:
| From the article
|
| "Jessica is a proud first-generation Ecuadorian-American and a
| second-year Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation,
| and Knowledge (SEEK) student at Baruch College majoring in
| business management with a minor in law and policy."
|
| Jessia is the American dream. First generation, got to college
| and writing like that.
|
| Lots of Americans concentrate on what is wrong with America.
| There is value in that but it's really important to remember that
| America is still a place where immigrants can come and they or
| their children will really make it.
|
| Good on them.
|
| (BTW. I am not an American but I did live and work there.)
| throw8932894 wrote:
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us
| something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| 2390123 wrote:
| Her parents collected cans to give their child an education
| and now her writing is on the front page of hackernews.
|
| They fucking made it.
| cgio wrote:
| So you need to own a couple houses or businesses to be
| considered one who made it? I don't have one of either, but I
| am somewhere where I feel I made it. Less of a safety net
| than if I owned a house of business, but then again those are
| too expensive to be pursued with no attention to alternatives
| and also provide a very porous shield from the crises.
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| For whatever reason HN nerds love stories about recycling
| even though this family is clearly poor and not making good
| financial decisions.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Yeah we don't know if the parents even ever tried to find
| better jobs, or if they just found the one job and kept at
| it.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Ah yes the good old, being poor is a character flaw.
| There's plenty of evidence that being poor is primarily due
| to nothing else but lack of money. But the rich/middle
| class love to feel superior by saying people are poor
| because of bad financial decisions.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He didn't say it was a character flaw. It's just context
| in which to put their other financial decisions.
|
| The financial risk analysis of college is very different
| when you're poor.
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| I'm not saying it's a character flaw. I'm saying they
| held onto a job that wasn't optimal based on their other
| available options. They could have been middle class had
| they chosen another job. Down right negligent honestly
| since they clearly had no healthcare that entire time.
| One illness could have thrown them on the street.
| darkwater wrote:
| > They could have been middle class had they chosen
| another job.
|
| What the effing f? So they "chose" to be poor?
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| Actually.... Yea. In this case that's exactly what's
| happening. It's like if you got a job at McDonald's
| working minimum wage when you were 16 but then you never
| moved on.
| pessimizer wrote:
| When customizing their character, they should have chosen
| a different profession than "garbage picker" on the
| selection screen. To be honest, I really don't know how
| they found it - I didn't see garbage picker on the menu
| at all, and I don't even know any garbage pickers.
| lostlogin wrote:
| They funded their kid through school, they didn't do that
| badly.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > I would not call that "make it". Maybe once they own couple
| of houses or business.
|
| You sound exactly like the snobby kids in the story, judging
| who can be proud of "making it" and who can't.
|
| Anyone who doesn't own a couple houses or business should
| feel ashamed for not "making it".
| throw8932894 wrote:
| OP argued that US is so great, since it allows immigrants
| to "make it" by collecting trash. It is exactly this type
| of smugness, false positivism and immigrant exploitation I
| hate.
|
| People should not be ashamed for not owning a house. But
| they should also know that chance to buy a house for
| unqualified worker in NY is 0.001%. If there is a realistic
| view of situation in US, they may stay at their home
| country.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Why attend college at all? By going to college, she's
| implying that people who haven't gone to college don't have
| exactly the same opportunities and security as anyone else.
| She's the real snob.
| elil17 wrote:
| The writing in this article is incredible and I have nothing
| but admiration for the author and her family.
|
| But, to me, this situation is what's wrong with America. Why
| are people who are clearly so hard working struggling to get
| by?
| HamburgerEmoji wrote:
| arkis22 wrote:
| wait till you realize what's happening in the rest of the
| world. where people work much harder and still don't get by.
| halfdan wrote:
| That's classic whataboutism. That doesn't explain away why
| it's that bad in the US nor does it justify accepting the
| status quo.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _where people work much harder and still don 't get by._
|
| This happens to a lot of people in the US, as well.
| [deleted]
| smt88 wrote:
| "It's worse somewhere else" isn't relevant to whether it's
| acceptable in the US.
|
| The US has the resources to reward hard workers with
| financial stability. It also benefits from brain-draining
| other countries with this promise.
|
| If the US continues to slide away from the "American
| Dream," the brains and prosperity will end up somewhere
| else.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| So how much do you want to pay for bottle collecting?
| When you say "the US has the resources to reward hard
| workers", in this case you mean everybody who buys a
| bottle should pay more. Or how would you envision it to
| play out?
| smt88 wrote:
| We could easily turn bottle-collecting into a job with
| guaranteed hours and pay.
|
| Bottle-collecting is a poor example for the broader issue
| I was discussing. Those programs are intended for the
| (mostly homeless) poor to pick up trash they see instead
| of leaving it behind. It does what it's supposed to do.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| Many places use a deposit system, where if you return the
| packaging for recycling, you get your money back. This
| cuts down on litter, at no cost to those who recycle.
| [deleted]
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| But presumably, the higher the price for returning
| bottles, the less likely people will be to just dump them
| on the street, for the collectors to collect?
|
| Or it will become attractive for more collectors. In any
| case, it may not be so simple to raise their "wage" for
| collecting bottles.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > The US has the resources to reward hard workers with
| financial stability.
|
| Most hard workers in the U.S. are rewarded with financial
| stability. Not everyone, but enough that people still
| flock here from other countries where that's less true.
|
| > It also benefits from brain-draining other countries
| with this promise.
|
| Well gee, I guess the U.S. should stop being such a great
| place for immigrants, so talented people stop coming here
| and stay wherever they live now.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Most hard workers in the U.S. are rewarded with
| financial stability. Not everyone, but enough that people
| still flock here from other countries where that 's less
| true._
|
| You think restaurant workers are lazy? Factory workers?
| Amazon fulfillment workers?
|
| Why do people need two or three exhausting jobs to make a
| living?
|
| > _Well gee, I guess the U.S. should stop being such a
| great place for immigrants, so talented people stop
| coming here and stay wherever they live now._
|
| I don't know what this means. Have the courage to say
| what you mean instead of using sarcasm.
|
| Whatever you mean, the US needs young workers to resolve
| our massive labor shortage and we need educated workers
| to be our next generation of scientists, doctors,
| engineers, and entrepreneurs.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Why do people need two or three exhausting jobs to make
| a living?
|
| Most. Not all. The U.S. can still do better, but there
| needs to be some perspective on how the U.S. stacks up
| against the rest of the world. Better than most
| countries, not as good as some.
|
| > Whatever you mean, the US needs young workers to
| resolve our massive labor shortage and we need educated
| workers to be our next generation of scientists, doctors,
| engineers, and entrepreneurs.
|
| Brain drain sounded to me like the U.S. attracting those
| people is a bad thing, because those people should stay
| in their own countries. That's not what you meant to
| imply?
|
| We do need educated workers to fill the jobs you
| describe, but at the same time we probably send too many
| young people to college, many of whom would do better
| with solid technical skills training leading directly to
| jobs with far less debt.
| smt88 wrote:
| From a US perspective, braining other countries' brains
| is good. I understand the term is negative, but I didn't
| mean it that way.
|
| We don't need to ask how the US stacks up against the
| rest of the world -- only our economic peers. Compared to
| many Western European countries and Canada, we are not
| investing our excess resources as well into social
| safety.
|
| I'm not a socialist and don't support UBS, but the floor
| of poverty in the US needs to be much higher (for all our
| sakes).
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Or, if you take another section of the rest of the world
| wait till you realize what's happening in the rest of the
| world where people work less hard and don't have it that
| bad.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That is a much smaller slice of the world than the
| opposite.
|
| Even the poor in the U.S. are still better off than most
| people in the rest of the world. The U.S. can certainly
| do better addressing income inequality, but there still
| needs to be some perspective as to the relative
| opportunity available to people in the U.S. compared to
| most other places.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Then hopefully immigrants are also going there and
| enjoying that system, if it supports them, wherever it
| may be.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| FYI a great many immigrants were rich when they
| immigrated. A lot of rich people come to America because
| America offers so much opportunity to people who are
| already wealthy. Immigrants from overseas are especially
| likely to be wealthy. Indian-Americans are the wealthiest
| ethnic demographic in America simply because migrating
| from India pretty much requires being very wealthy to
| begin with.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Nothing I said indicated the immigrants were rich or
| poor, the majority are poor though.
|
| My point was if there's a nicer system than the US,
| immigrants will be flocking there too.
|
| Luckily we have numbers on the rates of which people
| immigrate to which countries, and the average wages of
| citizens of those countries.
|
| > Indian-Americans are the richest ethnic minority in
| America because migrating from India pretty much requires
| being wealthy.
|
| Plenty of lower class Indian immigrants pool their money
| for taxi medallions, convenient stores, hotels, trucks,
| etc. to get a business going.
|
| They integrate well and know how to climb the system.
| They send their children in as doctors later in
| generations. They don't always start rich, they work for
| it.
|
| > A lot of rich people come to America because America
| treats rich people so well, at the cost of treating poor
| people like dirt. See: tax rates.
|
| You'll find tax rates are better in the US than most
| other countries for lower income families. For businesses
| the US has only recently been competitive.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Poor Americans pay exorbitant proportions of American
| taxes compared with all other developed nations, and they
| get nothing for it. Not even any healthcare. Meanwhile
| rich Americans pay essentially nothing in taxes compared
| with other countries.
|
| Poor immigrants come to America because it's the only
| wealthy nation that lets so many of them come, both
| officially and unofficially. America takes in tremendous
| numbers of migrants because rich Americans want cheap
| labor and they want to keep wages stagnant for another 40
| years if they can help it. And this is why we don't
| document them too; because then they would cost more $.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| lloydgrossman wrote:
| valarauko wrote:
| > Plenty of lower class Indian immigrants pool their
| money for taxi medallions, convenient stores, hotels,
| trucks, etc. to get a business going.
|
| Are there many "lower class Indian immigrants" who
| arrived in the past 30 years? The immigration system
| since the 90s has raised the barrier for Indians so high
| that the idea of 'lower class Indian immigrants' seems
| difficult to parse. I disagree with the assertion that
| Indians have to be very wealthy to immigrate - highly
| educated/qualified, yes. The era when an Indian taxi
| driver could immigrate ended many decades ago.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| As I understand, lower class/cast Indians have to win a
| lottery to get a decent education.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Yes. There are many lower class immigrants period and
| there's many jobs in which they work.
|
| Uber driving, trucking, convenient stores, and many more.
| valarauko wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious how this is the case. Every desi
| person I see working in the jobs you mentioned has
| usually turned out to be Bangladeshi or Pakistani - For
| every Indian Uber driver, I've gotten 5 Pakistani ones.
| I'm in NYC, which has a large South Asian population. The
| city is quite tolerant of undocumented immigrants, so I'd
| expect undocumented Indians to occupy some significant
| fraction of those jobs as well. Yet even Indian
| restaurants here are mostly staffed by Bangladeshis.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > They integrate well and know how to climb the system.
| They send their children in as doctors later in
| generations. They don't always start rich, they work for
| it.
|
| And from this article, we can see Ecuadorians follow a
| similar path. The integrate well, and climb the system by
| sending their sons and daughters to college where they
| can build a better life for themselves than their parents
| had.
| danans wrote:
| > Indian-Americans are the wealthiest ethnic demographic
| in America simply because migrating from India pretty
| much requires being very wealthy to begin with.
|
| Most Indian immigrants come from middle class, not poor
| or rich backgrounds. They are privileged enough to have
| access to educational opportunities that give them the
| skills to emigrate, but privileged enough to not have a
| reason to emigrate.
| x0x0 wrote:
| You may find some books on the economic history of the US
| interesting.
|
| I suspect Jessica's parents immigrated and have very little
| formal education. Possible causes: trade liberalization means
| low skill workers in the US are competing with similar
| workers across the entire world. Simultaneously: 10th, 25th,
| and even median wages have barely moved in well over 20
| years. Many of the jobs previously open to unskilled people
| willing to work very hard are no longer done in the US. A
| large shift of economic growth to capital over labor (which
| is, btw, the result of deliberate policy choices).
| elil17 wrote:
| I think it's important to consider how we got here, but I
| think it's more important to consider what we can do about
| it. Many social policies could make life easier for people
| like Jessica and her family.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I don't think you can think about what to do in any
| serious way without understanding how we got here.
| Including American attitudes towards the social policies
| you're likely thinking of.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Likely bec they arrived through "unconventional" means and
| aren't eligible to work.
| rootsudo wrote:
| It's not a "problem" per se, it's unskilled, untrained labor
| and someone with no resources trying to make it.
|
| Not all hard work gets a reward.
|
| Not everyone has a happy ending.
|
| While statistically, you have a better chance of making a
| "high" salary in the USA, it really also depends on _what_
| you do and _who_ you know.
|
| Picking up cans also sounds like they could be undocumented,
| with no "legal" work papers.
|
| Many times, it would/could be better for someone to stay in
| their "origin" country and live a regular life, but at the
| same time, you have to think - "would many people that have a
| network and a "career" leave everything they have, uproot
| their close family and go to another country, where even the
| language is different to pick up cans?
|
| Is that sacrafrice? Is it worth it? Is it even legal? (lols)
|
| As shown with "amiga" in the article - the authors parents
| also do not know English.
|
| The same happens with many "normal" Americans as well. The
| ones that are illiterate, have a poor network of friends,
| uneducated, etc. While we don't hear about it as often, it's
| pitted away as more depressing/their own fault because "they
| were born in the USA anyway."
|
| --
|
| Nothing against the author, but it reads as poverty porn.
| Great she accepts herself, and isn't ashamed, and while we
| may all think she should wear it as a badge of honor - in
| reality, the more socially distanced you appear to your
| peers, the more you are.
|
| Pariah is pariah.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| I think the one bit you've not covered here is the
| children. While the parents likely will live a life of
| difficulty and work, their children become part of the
| American education pipeline that makes it quite likely they
| will be, if nothing else, integrated into society in a
| manner that will make their taking the next upward class
| step much easier. The parents are taking the hit to their
| livelihoods and careers to enable the next generation to be
| more successful. It's not a guarantee, but probably more
| upward mobility here.
| snapetom wrote:
| Your comment is a sobering economic reality of what it's
| like for immigrants, documented and undocumented, and even
| putting aside the huge cultural adjustments.
|
| We're biased in tech because we see H1-B visa holders
| living a comfortable life, even with lower wages. However,
| this is an outlier in current, and certainly prior,
| immigrant stories. Immigrating to a new country is
| downright hard. Many times it's unskilled, but also, at
| least in the Western countries, it's an issue of
| unrecognized skills that makes things difficult. My father
| had an EE degree and certifications from his home country,
| but the US, where we immigrated, didn't recognize them. He
| had to work in lower skilled jobs in electronics for years
| because of this.
|
| I remember going can scavenging with him to supplement
| household income. It was a decent way to put food on the
| table back in the early 80's.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Jessia is the American dream.
|
| She's the one who made it, unlike thousands of others, who
| worked equally hard, and didn't.
|
| No family should have both parents working 12 hours a day just
| to survive, period.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Who gets to define "made it"?
|
| Did the electrician or garbage truck driver who's parents
| came from just as much not also make it?
|
| Why is it implied in so many comments around here that anyone
| who didn't go to college and get a white collar job pushing
| papers/code/spreadsheets didn't make it?
| thehappypm wrote:
| Electricians probably make more than half of the folks
| commenting on HN.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The "average techie" income curve is generally shifted
| higher than the "average electrician" bell curve though
| the shapes are different and there's some close areas and
| intersections.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're the one who, when trying to come up with examples of
| people who _other people_ would think haven 't made it,
| came up with electricians and garbage truck drivers.
|
| What are you arguing here? That all people are equally
| comfortable and all jobs are equally good, and that
| implying that suffering is bad is demeaning to the people
| who suffer? It's like upside-down wokeness. While some
| people are arguing to put in wheelchair ramps, this is like
| instead insisting that implying that wheelchair users can't
| walk as well as everyone else is prejudiced.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Oh FFS.
|
| My point is that it's unrealistic to expect people to go
| from refugee to hedge fund manager in one generation.
| Refugee to stable blue collar is reasonable.
| black_13 wrote:
| jimbokun wrote:
| > She's the one who made it, unlike thousands of others, who
| worked equally hard, and didn't.
|
| Data?
|
| Immigrants continue to do very well in the U.S., often
| succeeding to a greater extent than people born here.
| c0balt wrote:
| What's your argument/ statement based on? At least link a
| study after accusing someone else of misrepresenting a
| topic.
| ip26 wrote:
| It took both parents working 12 hours a day. But the story
| appears to be set in New York City.
|
| Isn't living there a choice, not something they are forced
| into?
| kubb wrote:
| Not only that, but when she graduates, she might not be able
| to get a well-paying job and subsequently find a home. She
| may well be living below the level of a factory worker from
| the 60s.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| The only people complaining are rich privileged people who get
| into top colleges because of daddy and mommy. Source: know a
| bunch of such people.
|
| Good thing about wealth generation is ultimately these low
| level buffoons get weeded out, they will never break past the
| low millions. They never knew real hardship so they can only go
| so far.
| rmk wrote:
| I am curious: if you collect cans for a living, do you qualify
| for government assistance? Is it possible that Jessica Yauri
| receives aid earmarked for children so they can get proper
| nutrition, via her parents? She does not mention if she qualifies
| for lunch assistance. Also, I am assuming that she goes to a
| public school where she doesn't have to pay to attend. It is also
| not clear if she receives further aid in support of her going to
| college.
|
| There is a mention of $400 towards high school fees causing some
| anxiety among her parents, but beyond that, not too many concrete
| details.
|
| The focus of the article is on the writer's experience with the
| shame she experiences because of her parents' job, so perhaps
| it's not the right place for this information, but the composite
| picture would be a much more faithful representation of the
| overall experience of Jessica's.
|
| This is also a point where America needs to introspect, as a
| nation: sure, we import less-fortunate immigrants, in large part
| because they are much more willing to do dirty jobs such as
| gathering cans, but it's also true that it all comes out in the
| wash: society as a whole is responsible for bearing the costs of
| keeping these people fed, clothed, schooled, and taken care of in
| medical emergencies. If you added up the costs, is the labor
| "cheap" anymore, or does it make more sense to discourage the
| immigration of what is likely to be a 2-3 generation underclass,
| and incentivise people already here to step in?
| irjustin wrote:
| A number of fair questions, I can only answer from personal
| experience.
|
| My dad being a bus driver+conference phone tech and my mom an
| office admin we qualified for lunch and other aids as long as I
| was in school.
|
| Many things were subsidized, but there were also things that
| weren't. It was hard to know when unless you always asked.
|
| For smaller items sometimes it wasn't worth the embarrassment
| of always walking up to your teacher or school admin to ask if
| there was a discount for me. They knew who I was and what I was
| asking for. Super nice about it, but it doesn't make it feel
| any less worse. I also had to sneak away from friends. I also
| didn't want them around while I asked.
|
| But you're right at a $400 required fee, usually there's a form
| of aid/discount.
|
| I'll give the writer a benefit of doubt. Maybe there wasn't aid
| available? Maybe there was and it simply wasn't enough. $400 =>
| $100 can still be very stressful.
|
| Regardless, I thank my parents and grandparents, because being
| one of the lucky ones - I never went hungry.
| rmk wrote:
| It is always embarrassing, even for a young child, to be
| asking for what he feels to be handouts. But, in your
| personal experience, was there enough assistance, and did it
| make a meaningful difference at the right time in your life?
| Was being better-informed about assistance the biggest
| challenge by far?
| cgio wrote:
| I am a little bit annoyed with the direction of your argument.
| To counter argue, it is obvious in this case that the value
| that you get from this "underclass" is more that the cheap
| labour, it's also an educated young person with passion and
| depth of experiences that you would struggle to get from
| "people already here" alone. What has been coming out "in the
| wash" for the duration of your history, I assume you comment
| from US perspective, is a prosperous country, so it seems you
| have been getting a great deal.
| rmk wrote:
| In what specific way is an imported poor person better than a
| local poor person? There are plenty of generationally poor
| people in America already, so how does America benefit vs. by
| helping the poor that are already here to a higher extent.
| After all, citizenship or permanent residency means that you
| have a higher claim on your fellow-citizens' taxes that are
| set aside for the purpose of human development.
|
| Second, the "educated young person" was educated courtesy of
| the United States, not her country of origin. I agree with
| you somewhat that immigrants have a higher drive to succeed.
| But, how do poorer uneducated, possibly illegal immigrants
| fare in this regard vs. self-supporting well-educated
| immigrants who are better able to integrate easily into the
| mainstream?
|
| I believe immigration is essential to keep growth going, and
| to keep various social support systems such as Medicare and
| Social Security solvent in the current state. However, there
| is the subtle question of whether that is accomplished by
| having control and a say over what type of immigration it is
| that we want, or by relinquishing any semblance of control in
| the matter. Any democratic society with a right to self-
| determination should be able to have a frank discussion and
| the ability to decide for themselves how they proceed on
| this.
| cgio wrote:
| Economics does not work with specific comparisons for me,
| I.e. not in comparisons between this and that person. In
| your theoretical comparison, both are able to contribute
| given the proper opportunities, as a country you have the
| resources to give them both opportunities. The blocker as
| far as I can tell from an outsider's perspective is that
| the society is conditioned against supporting each other.
|
| I am myself a highly skilled immigrant (different country).
| It is convenient to be able to pick and choose, but this
| can end up in a kind of immigrant monoculture. I know of
| less skilled at the time of entry immigrants that have
| achieved more than me, by sheer passion and entrepreneurial
| spirit. Education is a good indicator but not the end all.
| Finally, this selection will work for first generation,
| what you get from the following generations is correlated
| perhaps, but not defined, and statistically as per my
| previous answer, the US got pretty good outcomes with
| minimal controls at the point of entry and with a pure
| aspirational system of values that self-selected success
| (big discussion now that we move on this and it's
| relationship with generational poverty).
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| dbavaria wrote:
| I don't think you are curious, rather you're making a not so
| subtly veiled point against immigration which is wholly
| inappropriate in the context of this thread.
| rootsudo wrote:
| I think it is a 100% valid statement.
|
| Are the authors parents, or is the author even valid to
| reside in the USA permanently?
|
| And before anyone cries "racist", my background is 100%
| similar to the author in question. It's a shame that in the
| USA we have people who never really learned the Spanish
| language or culture and go on with "latinx" which is mocked
| even on twitter, to people who protect people that may have
| entered the United States illegally.
|
| Migrating for work or school are very valid routes, but as
| the author stated she was "12" when she started collecting
| cans with her parents, it paints a picture that she migrated
| to the United States sometime during middle school. With per
| parents not having a support network in place, being
| illiterate in English, it seems highly unlikely they migrated
| here for work or university. Same for the author being 12 as
| well, highly unlikely that she migrated to the United States
| and sponsored her parents.
|
| Nothing veiled about it, very legitimate questions. Many
| other families come in the country legally and are able to
| sponser themselves, that is one of the main focal points of
| immigration services. Are the people who are changing their
| nationality, able to survive, prosper and adapt to a new
| environment? Alongside liability, why should the United
| States have to socially assist someone that is new or even
| potentially an illegal alien over a "real" USA Citizen?
|
| It is 100% appropriate, and matches the context of the story
| of the author - or more specifically why can't the authors
| parents support their child?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Long-winded way of saying you think America should not
| allow poor people to immigrate because they might cost
| society too much, and poor Spanish speaking immigrants are
| probably illegal anyway.
| rootsudo wrote:
| It's valid. Refugees are refugees and are granted legal
| status. Illegitimate Spanish speaking aliens encourage
| human trafficking through unsafe conditions, Turbo,
| Colombia, Darien Gap, Cayotes in general and sponser
| cartels, - etc, worker extortion, unsafe work places
| (e.g. company hires illegal aliens, pays under minimum
| wage, no safety regards and if there's any talk out of
| line - it's just a call to ICE/DHS and the problem is
| solved and other problems are brushed under the rug,
| illiteracy, and future broken families because when they
| are caught, they will uproot or dampen their families in
| the USA financially and criminally.
|
| Legal immigration is fine, there are support networks in
| place to grant a base wage/support, language support in
| Spanish and English Classes/Adult ESL classes/ Adult GED
| classes because they are a citizen and as an American USA
| Citizen they are entitled to that.
|
| Your reply is baitclicky poverty porn that sounds bad, so
| it must be bad (and ignore every other issue because it
| feels bad) - because when you look at Indian Immigration,
| Chinese Immigration - it is 100% a different issue. Less
| of all the above issues.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| And you can't pretend to be OK with poor people
| immigrating legally when you also have this opinion:
|
| "why should the United States have to socially assist
| someone that is new"
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| "baitclicky poverty porn that sounds bad"
|
| I'm not sure you know what either "baitclick" or poverty
| porn are, and I'm very sure that you are misinformed
| about immigration in the United States, no matter how
| close to it you feel. Regardless, you don't get to
| dismiss facts simply because they make you feel bad.
|
| There are not in fact significant support networks for
| legal immigrants, even refugees. There are informal
| community supports and nonprofits, but you have to live
| in the right place (and as a refugee, you don't get to
| choose).
|
| More importantly, are you even aware that poor Spanish
| speaking people immigrate here legally without being
| refugees? They win greencards in the lottery every year
| or they get sponsored by family (that old bogeyman of
| chain migration!). (The author lives near her
| grandparents, perhaps that's how they arrived!)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I wasn't aware on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty it
| said "Give me your wealthy, fur-clad masses yearning to
| make a buck"
| rmk wrote:
| The Statue of Liberty does not dictate complex public
| policy. America provides more (no strings-attached) aid
| to poor countries than any other country, and it also
| takes in more immigrants than perhaps the rest of the
| world combined (almost every country in the world has a
| net positive emigration rate to the USA).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Well they ought to have put the public charge laws on
| there too, no doubt.
| [deleted]
| kstenerud wrote:
| My family used to do this all the time when we were kids. We'd go
| along the ditches on the side of the road and make a family
| outing of it on weekends. At the beach my brother and I would
| drag big plastic garbage bags around and collect as much as we
| could from people who were happy to help some kids out and also
| happy to be rid of the bottles and cans. You could make some
| decent coin at it, but that was also in the 80s when 5c a can and
| 10-20c a bottle was worth something.
|
| It gets into your bones. Even today with 25 years software dev
| experience under my belt, I still feel the twitch whenever I see
| a discarded bottle or can.
| 2390123 wrote:
| I grew up in the same neighborhood as the writer, even went to
| the same college. It was normal that my family members
| collected cans. We all struggled to get by and that struggle is
| something that you will never forget. It keeps you grounded
| especially when you're in a tech industry that often forgets
| about how it is for people at the bottom of our society. Value
| that twitch and that feeling. I consider it sort of a lower
| brain stem function that reminds us of where we came from, what
| we had to do and why we have to be there for others going
| through the same.
|
| My partner teases me about it but I collect every single
| can/bottle from my household and any other place I can find
| them and put them into trashbags in the trunk of my car. I
| often have no space to store other things in the trunk. When
| I'm back in my old neighborhood visiting family, I make it a
| point to stop and give these bags to individuals collecting. I
| know there are better ways to give back and donate but it's
| something that I will never stop doing because I know people
| appreciate reaching them on their level and letting them know
| we don't judge it, in fact we support it.
| [deleted]
| newsclues wrote:
| My mom worked at a university so after school I'd take the bus
| there and go to a few spots and collect bottles and cans, which
| gave me some money to go to the campus store and get a snack.
|
| Everyone was a winner!
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I know what you mean. I used to walk around my school and the
| road for coins as a kid to pay for Advanced Placement (reduced
| cost) tests. I still instinctually reach for cash on the ground
| after a decade in software.
| robga wrote:
| I read this with a smile. Collecting cans was my first money
| making venture as a 10yo, 80% of my life ago. ~1c/can (recycle
| value, no deposit), about $10/wk just cleaning up at 2
| neighbourhood schools. I remember making my own 'can crushers'
| with a 2x4 and a brick. There was no shame in it, I felt much
| pride at that cash-in. The sickly sweet smell and soft clatter
| as the bag contents turned from aluminium to cash stays with me
| today.
| rkk3 wrote:
| kstenerud wrote:
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Why is violence your response to rudeness?
| kstenerud wrote:
| It has been, and it has served me well. You'd be
| surprised at how quickly abusive people shut up after a
| smack.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Do you live in a jurisdiction where you don't have to
| worry about assault charges?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| If you have kids I hope you don't raise them that way (or
| think that violence is an acceptable approach there).
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack in HN threads.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rkk3 wrote:
| uh-huh, yeah bet you probably had a good karate teacher
| your parents paid for.
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait
| comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot,
| unfortunately, and we ban that sort of account. It's not
| what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Please don't make things worse like this, even if your
| comment got a provocative and uncharitable reply.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| fileeditview wrote:
| What the heck made you throw such a condescending accusation?
| I can really find nothing in the OP's comment that would
| justify such a reaction..
| rkk3 wrote:
| "all the time" ... "the weekend"
| rkk3 wrote:
| they might as well have posted on an article about
| growing up homeless living in a tent to talk about how
| they loved to sleep in tents, all the time, on the
| weekends when they were camping as a kid, much fun!
| medion wrote:
| I lived in Berlin for a while without an income - I collected
| cans and bottles and would cash them in at the supermarket for
| food vouchers.
| nigerian1981 wrote:
| How did you cover your rent and other expenses?
| medion wrote:
| I had savings for rent, but not enough for food.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| During the great recession I had a co worker, a legendary game
| designer in some circles, tell me he was collecting cans to pay
| for gas.
|
| When he was unemployed he was desperate for any type of work. I
| was more interested in how gentrification makes her family's life
| harder. Back when I was 19 you could get a place in LA for 600$.
| Now same place is 1300$, no matter how many shifts or cans you
| pick up your not covering that.
|
| I hope some help comes to working class America...
| MisterTea wrote:
| hearing $1300 and $600 in terms of rental money and living in
| NYC I cant help but ask what neighborhoods is that rent
| available? Back in the late 90's friends who were moving out at
| 17-18 Yo were having a hard time finding local places for $500
| in the boonies of Queens.
|
| I own some property and have a large 2nd floor 3BR that can
| fetch $2500 and its in a shitty neighborhood where someone was
| shot around the corner the other day. Most 2BR apartments are
| 1800 and up with 1BR apartments starting at 1300+. People
| living in Manhattan shoe boxes are paying ~2000+ for 1BR.
| valarauko wrote:
| Parent comment says LA, so perhaps its possible there?
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It definitely was.
|
| And LA was affordable up until 10 years ago, then things
| got rapidly worse.
| valarauko wrote:
| What changed? NYC has been pretty unaffordable for a very
| long time - what changed in LA?
| MisterTea wrote:
| LA is a big city just like NYC. You can get apartments for
| under $1000 but they're usually illegal basement
| conversions in a crime ridden dump or a modest 1BR split
| into two shoe box studios in or near said crime ridden
| dumps.
| ed312 wrote:
| American households are intended/designed to purchase property.
| If you don't, you're perpetually at the whims of the housing
| market. You may agree or disagree with this as a way to
| structure society, but renting long-term is always going to be
| a losing proposition outside of some very specific situations.
| The biggest source of middle class wealth is real estate for a
| myriad of reasons.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I've tried it a few of times just out of curiosity, and it's a
| frustrating exercise in paying attention to detail and being
| rejected over and over.
|
| Only about half the otherwise identical cans and bottles you see
| are returnable for deposit due to legalese reasons, like the
| wrong store or the wrong state.
|
| For example, a huge portion of Poland Spring bottles have a red
| strip on the label, and these are not returnable because they
| were bought in a 24-pack.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I used to go through a lot of crystal geyser bottles, and I
| would try to get the CRV back at my local recycling center. But
| they seemed dead set on scamming people. The first few times I
| went they would give me very little money for what seemed like
| a lot of bottles. When I finally asked them about it they said
| they pay by weight unless you count it out. This results in
| dramatic underpayment.
|
| The next time I went, I had the bottles all counted, and I told
| the guy right as I was giving him the bag. He weighed it, threw
| it into a common bin, and pretended not to have heard the
| count. The next time he said something about having to count it
| out with me, or something. It was a frustrating experience, and
| it seemed lousy to be scammed when I was going doing all the
| things I was supposed to do to recycle.
|
| Then I got a sodastream, and my bottle usage plummeted.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| My dad walked/s most mornings. During my childhood he always
| brought a little store plastic bag and picked up and cans or
| bottles he walked by on the road. After many many years he said
| for something significant with the money like a semester of
| tuition or a car down payment. Something like that.
| larodi wrote:
| Ever thought that these people are straight out of the holy books
| - have little themselves, struggle, and in the same time save the
| rest of the world by recycling what others would not...? We
| praise monks in monasteries, but forget to hail those who do the
| dirt.
| DarylZero wrote:
| > We praise monks in monasteries
|
| Do we?
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| Incredible essay, thanks for sharing this. With all the tech
| wealth it can be all too easy to forget where some of us came
| from.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| As they should.
|
| About a decade ago in Toronto, Ontario, Canada we actually made
| collecting cans out of recycling bins illegal. The city claimed
| that these "scavengers" were taking their rightful profits.
|
| I shit you not. [0]
|
| [0] https://toronto.citynews.ca/2008/08/07/city-to-crack-down-
| on...
| chongli wrote:
| They are stealing. They're trespassing on people's property to
| take resources that don't belong to them and selling them at a
| profit, depriving the city's recycling program of revenue. And
| the people I see doing this are probably not homeless people
| since they are picking up all the metal in a fancy pickup
| truck. Not only are they collecting cans but also old metal
| furniture and appliances. This is a business they run at the
| city's expense, doing redundant with the city already paid for.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| There is a ton of case law in pretty much every common law
| jurisdiction establishing that stuff that is visibly trash-
| like and abandoned in a public area is fair game.
|
| If the job is redundant because volunteers are doing it than
| maybe the city should stop paying for it.
| chongli wrote:
| These areas are private property: the ends of people's
| driveways. The city pays for trash and recycling collection
| from these areas. The scavengers steal all of the
| profitable items (mostly metal) from people's recycling,
| making the recycling program even more unprofitable than it
| already is.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| The dirty secret of recycling is that a significant percentage
| of what the city of Toronto collects is not really recyclable;
| those black take out containers, pizza boxes, plastic bags,
| contaminated paper products, loose lids ....
|
| The only truly recyclable products are aluminum cans, clean
| paper and clear glass. Aluminum cans and clean cardboard are
| the only thing that really pays to recycle. If for profit
| companies, or even thousands of individuals, are going around
| scooping all the aluminum and clean cardboard first, the system
| quickly collapses as it becomes a huge expense and blue bins
| become simply another garbage bin.
|
| These scavengers were also exacerbating contamination in
| process -- our blue bins would regularly get dumped out on the
| street or sidewalk and the blue recycling bags ripped open so
| the "sorter" could find the cans faster.
|
| To be clear, there are no "profits" in recycling ... it's a
| loss with some cost recovery.
| poo-yie wrote:
| What's the significance of the glass being clear? I'm
| guessing this means that green or brown glass is not
| recyclable. Why is that?
| moron4hire wrote:
| It's strictly because you can't get the color back out of
| the glass. They want to make new, clear bottles, instead of
| just accepting that we could all live with just brown
| bottles.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Well, brown bottles also make it difficult to see if, for
| instance, those pickles have "passed". Both at the store
| level and for the consumer.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Huh? Pickles don't go bad. That's kinda the whole point
| of pickling.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I didn't say bad, "passed" ... mushy and yellowish.
|
| They can go also bad if they weren't canned properly,
| which is rare but happens.
|
| Which is why people like clear glass.
| poo-yie wrote:
| That was my guess. However, couldn't they make new brown
| bottles out of old brown bottles? Maybe not big enough
| incentive to sort by specific colors.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yep. Most bottles are clear and that's what the system is
| set up to recycle.
|
| We still recycle green and brown glass ... it's just less
| efficient and productive. I'm pretty sure it's a cost to
| the system as well.
| kevincox wrote:
| Toronto doesn't claim to recycle most of those objects:
|
| The tool doesn't allow linking to specific items but you can
| find the source here: https://www.toronto.ca/services-
| payments/recycling-organics-...
|
| - plastic food tubs: Place any black and/or compostable
| plastic in the Garbage Bin.
|
| - pizza boxes (food-soiled): Place this item in the Green
| Bin.
|
| - plastic bags: Recommends reuse first, but does claim that
| they should be put (bundled) into the recycle.
|
| I'm not saying that they aren't "collected" but it isn't a
| secret and Toronto very much encourages you doing it
| correctly.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| bruceb wrote:
| Well if city doesn't get that revenue then the will raise the
| price of garbage collection. Doesn't seem that surprising.
|
| From the article:
|
| But city officials argue the small-time scavengers aren't its
| chief concern.
|
| "We're not going after the single person going down the street
| going through the Blue Box," Orpin insists. "We're going after
| the professional recyclers, the guy who is running a truck or
| multiple trucks."
| PaulHoule wrote:
| There was that time in the 1970s that my dad rode bikes all over
| town to collect can and made enough money to buy new aluminum
| bicycles.
| donohoe wrote:
| In my neighborhood some people will bag cans and bottles
| separately from the other recycling and leave them out for the
| collectors. Another is to loosely and visibly tie the recycling
| bag so it's easier to open.
|
| If you have collectors in your neighborhood I recommend these
| easy ways to help.
| taude wrote:
| I started doing this a few months ago, too. I noticed that the
| collectors would be digging through the recycling bins, and I
| was worried that they'll cut themselves or something, so I
| decided to make their life a bit easier, and I separate my
| glass beverage bottles and cans from the regular recycling bin.
| I've been trying to get my neighbors to do this to. I live in a
| shared condo building, so this has the nice advantage for us of
| making less recycling for the regular pickup, and easier to
| carry the big toter bin.
|
| The boxes of cans and bottles seem to disappear within an hour
| of me putting them out the night before.
| podgaj wrote:
| I feel shame for the United States, not for the parents.
|
| Richest country in the world, but for whom?
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| This is honestly sad, pathetic, and nothing to be proud of.
| There's no chance at moving up doing this line of work and
| depends entirely on the state continuing a recycling program that
| pays less and less as inflation rises. You put yourself at risk
| by competing with homeless for these cans. Any time you're not
| working you lose out on profit and that can happen just from
| getting sick or injured.
|
| There's so many better jobs out there. My own immigrant parents
| started from doing service jobs in the food industry, driving,
| and kitchen work. They ended up doing all sorts of other jobs
| over the years but now own four properties with two fully paid
| off. This article isn't a success story, it's a story of failure.
| stavros wrote:
| Something that the article reminded me of: Is gagging a cultural
| phenomenon? I've only seen gagging mentioned in the US. I've
| never heard anyone in my country mention gagging, and we don't
| have a word for it. If there's a very strong putrid smell, we
| don't make gagging sounds, we just hold our breaths. I wasn't
| even aware that someone can puke from a strong smell until I saw
| it on TV, and it seems psychosomatic to me.
| ppod wrote:
| Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick says "my gorge rises at it"
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, we say "my stomach turns" too, referring to vomiting.
| Doesn't mean he's gagging.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I remember walking the roadside with my grandparents when I was
| about five years old, collecting cans. It wasn't exactly a "money
| for survival" type thing, but it was definitely welcome income. I
| had my own bag, and the cans I collected gave me enough money to
| buy toys and stuff.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| My father was illiterate, which left him very few options in life
| after spending his early 20s in prison for check fraud. During
| the 70s, he discovered he could pick up cardboard and recyclables
| from local shops and grocery stores and take them to the nearby
| recycling plant for decent money.
|
| By the early 90s, when I was a young teenager, he would use me as
| free labor and I'd spend my weekends crushing cans piled as
| mountains the size of pickup trucks. You'd have to remember to
| empty the can first, otherwise old beer or worse would get
| everywhere and you'd go home smelling like a chain-smoking drunk.
| The only redeeming quality was getting to see all the different
| brands and can designs and dreaming about how they might taste
| from their lingering aromas.
|
| We did this work on borrowed land in Tulalip, a local Indian
| reservation where he had made friends offering pickup recycling
| services. One early summer after a particularly grueling day, my
| dad handed me $10 and we made our way over to Tulalip's "Boom
| City", an open-air market of stalls selling fireworks of every
| imaginable kind. It was like heaven to me, the air filled with
| tiny explosions and the smell of spent fireworks while crowds
| palpable with excitement wandered among the two dozen stalls.
|
| I had my heart set on a brick of Black Cat firecrackers, but my
| allowance only got me half way there. When the stall owner
| noticed my dad, he threw me the brick. "Oh, you're Ron's son.
| Just give me what you have." I couldn't believe my luck. After we
| got home, I called my best friend to let him know about my bounty
| and that I was coming over to share. I would never get there.
|
| A few blocks from my destination I came across a yard sale, and
| as was habit spent a few minutes browsing things I could never
| afford. Most of it was your usual old housewares and used
| clothing, but among it all sat an old Apple II with a detached
| 5.25 drive. I'd only ever used a computer at school, and even
| then just during free time in the library playing "Oregon Trail"
| or "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?"
|
| "I'll trade you" came a voice as I gawked mouth-ajar at the
| computer, and I looked over to find a man pointing at my brick of
| firecrackers.
|
| When I got home and booted it up, I was greeted with the ">"
| prompt of Apple DOS 3.3 and no idea what to do next. In my
| excitement I recalled the seller had told me to type
| "loderunner", and the rest is history.
|
| It blows my mind that a summer crushing cans, a brick of
| fireworks, and an old Apple II led me out of poverty. I was so
| ashamed at what my parents did growing up, but realize now they
| were doing the best they could under the circumstances. It's so
| easy to look at someone else and judge them, and assume they're
| the victim of their own laziness rather than complicated people
| with complicated histories and complicated situations.
|
| My life wouldn't be the same if my poor, uneducated father hadn't
| been kind to his customers, a stall owner that was kind to a kid,
| and someone throwing a yard sale that saw the value of his old
| stuff in the hands of someone new.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > It's so easy to look at someone else and judge them, and
| assume they're the victim of their own laziness rather than
| complicated people with complicated histories and complicated
| situations.
|
| I understand what you mean from an emotional stand point, but
| isn't it odd we can think of someone crushing pick up size
| mountains of cans to make a buck as "lazy"?
|
| In retrospect, your dad was obviously busting his butt and
| hustling to make some honest money as best he could, and that
| deserves our admiration.
| schmorptron wrote:
| That is incredible.
| abraae wrote:
| Awesome story. My computer career started when our school got
| an Apple II. I skipped classes to use it, with hindsight
| failing the other classes but learning how to program set me up
| for life. Good on you for sacrificing your fireworks.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| The older I get the more I realise the fortunes in my life have
| such a basis in luck, a chance encounter here, a conversation
| that led to a shared topic there. So much of my life is based
| on one or two lucky chances I had, and I know that my life
| could have taken a very different turn, it is humbling to think
| about.
|
| This was a great read, thanks for sharing.
| Mezzie wrote:
| So much of life is luck.
|
| I'm from a lower-middle class family.
|
| My father was able to get into computers and video games during
| the microcomputer boom of the 70s because my GRANDFATHER
| repaired televisions on the side for extra money, so the house
| had all the tools for my dad to take people's broken machines,
| repair them, and use them. This led him to learn basic (and
| BASIC ha) programming, which helped him get a decent accounting
| job.
|
| In turn, when I was born in the 80s, we had a computer and,
| even though neither of my parents were college-educated (in
| fact, my mother was a high school drop out), my dad could
| explain programming well enough that I understood and was able
| to find out I was good at it/really enjoyed it + I grew up in a
| tinkering household that encouraged experimentation, repair,
| and tool use.
|
| And now those skills are the main reason I don't have to worry
| about poverty. Because in the 1940s and 1950s my grandfather
| fell in love with televisions. That's just luck.
| throemdiwo wrote:
| pbourke wrote:
| What a great story, thanks for sharing.
| bjourne wrote:
| Not to be contrarian, but it seems like the shame around poverty
| is just as strong as it ever was. Or else why are all these
| stories and anecdotes on the form "My parents collected cans but
| I made a career and I don't collect cans" or "I _used to_ collect
| cans but then I got some kind of break through my hard work and
| now I don 't collect cans anymore". It's a lot like depression:
| "I used to be depressed but then I worked out/bootstrapped
| myself/whatever and now I'm not depressed anymore."
|
| So. Are there any people on HN _currently_ collecting cans?
| throemdiwo wrote:
| pessimizer wrote:
| Because this is pornography meant to reassure the reading
| audience that quality people will always find their level in
| the end.
| Warrenio wrote:
| That interpretation isn't justified. The author makes it
| clear that she is still financially dependent on her parents,
| who still collect cans for a living.
| stavros wrote:
| > it seems like the shame around poverty is just as strong as
| it ever was
|
| I had the same thought as I was reading. It was all "our
| struggles make us stronger", not "being poor isn't something to
| be ashamed about". I had the opposite reaction of most people
| here, I found it sad that she has to act like the fact that she
| grew up poor was some personal deficiency she needed to
| overcome, rather than a tragedy that largely happens randomly
| due to the circumstances of your birth.
|
| People shouldn't have "to be supportive". It's like telling
| someone you have diabetes and being relieved when they don't
| make fun of you. No, not making fun of you should be the
| default.
| yob28 wrote:
| [deleted]
| xvilka wrote:
| The only trash in this article is Kip.
| black-tusk wrote:
| There's a documentary on the lives and times of can collectors
| who daringly ride hills on shopping carts Carts of Darkness
| (2008): https://youtube.com/watch?v=zi-f_J6hV-g&feature=emb_title
| chizhik-pyzhik wrote:
| What kind of hourly salary can you earn from collecting cans? I
| always assumed it was well below minimum wage.
| [deleted]
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| How fast can you collect a dollars worth of cans and bottles?
| moonchild wrote:
| Say 5 cents per can, and say minimum wage is $10/hour. Then
| you would need to collect one can every 18 seconds.
| windows2020 wrote:
| A common sight in at least Midtown and Downtown was people
| fishing cans out of city recycling bins.
| thrower123 wrote:
| I used to collect cans and bottles. Nowadays I don't know where
| you'd even take them to redeem them; there isn't enough money in
| it to justify paying sonebody to sort them; an entire truckload
| of cans wouldn't pay for the gasoline to drive them to the store.
| lambic wrote:
| The people who do this in my neighbourhood don't use a
| car/truck, I see them either walking or on a bicycle lugging
| giant bags of cans on their backs.
|
| I try to help them out by separating my cans/bottles into
| another bag.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Same. We used to collect cans, and whenever we filled up
| several trash bags worth, we'd drive to a can return machine in
| a parking lot. We'd press a button on the machine, and it would
| come to life. We'd then dump cans in a funnel, and coins would
| come out of a coin return. Now that I think about it, even when
| I was a kid, I don't recall ever seeing another machine like
| it.
|
| Edit, it looked like this:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Dallas/comments/ljr0sa/where_can_i_...
| Aachen wrote:
| Isn't the idea that one takes the bottles when you go to the
| store anyway? At least that's what we do. We've cut down on
| bottle use also, but even so there's a load from time to time,
| and I've started buying joghurt that comes in reusable glass
| jars so whenever I get new ones I return the old ones.
| rladd wrote:
| This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit
| prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a
| living wage.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think Oregon has the right idea. We did invent the bottle
| bill, so I guess that isn't a complete surprise. The redemption
| value is tied not to inflation, but to redemption rate. If it
| drops low enough, the deposit is increased. We started at 5
| cents, and in 2015 the redemption rate had slipped down to 65%,
| so the deposit was doubled to 10 cents.
| gkop wrote:
| Ok so we raise money to rent giant warehouses, hit the
| streets and buy up all the bottles for 10 cents, and then
| just warehouse them. Redemption rate slips, deposit increases
| -> profit.
| rhuru wrote:
| Here in california the fee per bottle and can goes to state as
| taxes. You can get it back by turning in bottles and cans at a
| recycling center but the California state had made it
| impossible to return these cans for money. They have
| systematically shut down automated recycling redemption
| machines, caused long lines at in person centers and so on.
| function_seven wrote:
| > _They have systematically shut down automated recycling
| redemption machines_
|
| I remember these machines outside of every grocery store, and
| now I don't see them anywhere anymore. It never occurred to
| me it was a purposeful effort, but then again I never gave it
| much thought.
|
| What caused the machines to disappear?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > What caused the machines to disappear?
|
| Because people hate the homeless and want to punish them,
| for some reason. It's the same reason we can't have
| comfortable public benches.
|
| Edit: Grammer
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Because people hate for the homeless and want to punish
| them, for some reason
|
| It's more, I think, that people hate _seeing_ the
| homeless, and want to keep them away. They don 't
| particularly care enough to _hate_ them, they just don 't
| want to have to _encounter_ them.
| exolymph wrote:
| I don't mind seeing homeless people, I simply don't wish
| to interact with them in any close or substantive
| fashion. It rarely goes well.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| That's a distinction without a difference.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Insofar as the "why" of anything matters, it's not.
|
| Insofar as only the action matters, the whole question of
| why is moot.
| najqh wrote:
| Precisely what we need is to make the deposit prices so high
| that the homeless will fight over them. Then we can record them
| and upload the videos to liveleak.
|
| Oh...
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| umvi wrote:
| > This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit
| prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a
| living wage
|
| It's not just inflation you have to keep up with but also
| falling material costs as aluminum is more mass produced, etc.
|
| Where does the money come from for the refunds? Without
| government subsidies I don't think it would make economic sense
| for a recycling center to pay $.50 or even $.25 per can if the
| amount of aluminum scrap is only worth $.10
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Typically these function as deposit programs: e.g. $0.10 per
| can is levied at retail purchase, to be hypothetically
| returned when the can is turned in for recycling, effectively
| creating bounties for the pickup and recycle of cans
| discarded rather than recycled.
| umvi wrote:
| Ah, so GP is essentially proposing raising prices on canned
| and bottled goods then to allow collectors to have living
| wage. That is a tricky needle to thread though because
| raise refund prices too much and fewer people will litter
| because it's like throwing money on the ground.
| night862 wrote:
| Deposit is paid by the purchaser, you reclaim the .5 or .10
| deposit when you return them for recycling.
| tdeck wrote:
| Where I live we have curbside recycling and people are paid a
| living wage to come by in a truck and pick it up. However, the
| folks 'collecting" these cans are actually taking them out of
| the bins during the night / morning before pickup.
| eru wrote:
| That's a bit silly.
|
| Bottle deposit are there to incentivise some people to return
| them. They just need to be high enough to do that.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I disagree. If the amount is low enough that it only
| incentivises people that are desperate, you are at arms
| length hiring people at poverty wages. I agree that we seem
| to have such low expectations of our society, that wanting
| something better than that seems fanciful and foolish.
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| Wages become a market question. The more their worth the
| more people start looking for a limited supply. Suppose you
| could pick up a can every 6 seconds (including time to
| collect deposit) that's 600 cans per hour at even 5c per
| can people would make 30$/hour which is solid pay. Except
| at that value people would go out if they could pickup a
| can every 12 seconds and make 15$/hour, down to whatever
| wages still motivate homeless people.
|
| At a higher value say 25c/can picking up 1 can per minute
| is 15$/hour so again people would go out even if they
| weren't collecting very many cans. Higher deposits should
| result in people doing a better job even if their not paid
| more.
| eru wrote:
| Very nicely analysed!
|
| That's basically the same reason why Uber can't give
| their drivers a raise, even if they wanted to. Unless
| they were barring new would-be drivers from joining.
|
| Of course, that also means that they can't cut drivers'
| pay easily either. Especially with competition from eg
| Lyft.
| [deleted]
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Here in Norway a half litre or smaller container has a deposit
| of 2 kr, bigger containers are 3 kr (22 and 33 US cent
| respectively).
|
| But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return
| rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it.
|
| Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the
| containers in return even if they were not purchased in that
| shop and even if they are of a different brand.
|
| So every supermarket has a reverse vending machine [1] where
| you deposit the bottles and cans and get a receipt that you can
| exchange for money or goods at the till.
|
| [1] Usually from Tomra:
| https://www.tomra.com/en/collection/reverse-vending/deposit-...
| Aissen wrote:
| Saw that at your neighboor's in Copenhagen, and after the
| first outrage of paying +50cts per drink, I understood that I
| was seeing a glimpse the future... If littering is equivalent
| to throwing money, you simply won't do it.
|
| Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your empty
| bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel about that
| though...
| cafard wrote:
| Some years ago, New York passed a law on recycling. For
| some reason, people seemed to be surprised when it turned
| out that those showing up at the grocery store with carts
| full of recyclables were neither lawyers nor stock traders,
| but rather the homeless.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| in California there are fewer dropoffs in stores but the
| bottles tend to come from residential recycling bins,
| which were raided while they were waiting for a truck to
| pick them up.
| tbihl wrote:
| In my experience, that's common, but so is people jumping
| your fence to raid your cans before you've put them out.
| And, should you ever try to recoup the 'deposit' by going
| to the recycling center, you'll spend 1+ hour in line
| being hounded by homeless people to give them your cans.
|
| All of it creates way more incentive to just throw your
| cans in the trash so you don't have to deal with any of
| that.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Bay Area here. My experience at recycling centers has
| always been quick and painless. Took over 60 lbs of cans
| and a bunch of scrap copper the other week. No line, no
| hounding.
| tbihl wrote:
| My experiences in Monterey (2015) and San Diego (2019)
| were negative. It is good to hear that the particular
| issue either is not universal or has improved with time.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's still a positive, at least if the recycling system
| works similar to in the EU.
|
| Here, food containers have fairly strict limits on what
| recycled waste can be used to make them. Returned bottles
| and cans are clean enough to be made into new food
| packaging, but ordinary household recycling waste is not.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I am not a rich man but the homeless guy needs the 50 cents
| more than I do. And I rather have homeless people collect
| cans than making street music to be honest...
| ratww wrote:
| I always assumed street musicians and homeless people
| were different people
| necovek wrote:
| While I don't see a connection between homeless people
| and street musicians, I am intrigued by your complaint of
| the street musicians?
|
| My kids are fascinated by them, and as long as they are
| not taking up too much space to make it impossible to
| pass through the street (and if they do, I'll happily
| pass through their "stage"), I am quite happy to have the
| streets livened up by some music too. Not all of it is
| good or to my taste, but it certainly beats empty
| streets, especially so during cold winter months.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| They block the shopping streets and their music is
| terrible. There are no empty streets in the Netherlands
| on a Saturday and there is nothing more depressing than a
| Eastern European on an accordion.
| necovek wrote:
| Isn't it the people that gather around them to listen
| that block the streets? That's usually my experience.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| > Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your
| empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel
| about that though...
|
| It becomes an alternative form of giving them your change,
| and you conveniently don't have to carry the bottle home.
| Although I've lived in a city where an old lady was known
| to roam the parks and was very pushy about wanting you to
| surrender your bottles.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Not in Norway, not enough homeless people and far too few
| discarded bottles and cans.
|
| I pick up the occasional beer can on the beach near where I
| live but they are almost always Polish and of course have
| no deposit.
| ratww wrote:
| _> Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your
| empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel
| about that though..._
|
| That's kind of convenient actually IMO. I get rid of the
| bottle, I don't have to give them cash. Win-win.
| swlp21 wrote:
| > homeless people might ask for your empty bottle and do
| the collection
|
| I lived in Alberta 10 years ago and this was totally a
| thing. One homeless guy hung around the apartment and if
| you were carrying drink containers he would come and say
| "Can I take them to the store for you?". Of course, he
| meant could he get the deposit money on them too. He would
| hang around until he could fill two or three large garbage
| bags then head off to the return center to collect the
| deposit money. In all the time I lived there, I never found
| out where the actual return center was as I never needed
| to. The few $ involved was no loss to me (or anyone else in
| the apartment) but went towards the homeless guy being able
| to buy food. Never once did he seem drunk or high so he
| really did seem to be doing it to get food. I would see
| other guys like him walking along the street with garbage
| bags of bottles too, so it appeared to be the thing they
| did and it seemed to work out for everyone as I spoke to
| lots of people who said they also had a local homeless
| person that did the same at their apartments.
| ratww wrote:
| When I lived in Brazil there was no reliable municipal
| recycling in my city, and no bottle deposit, so instead
| of throwing paper, cans and bottles into the common
| garbage, we just left it properly separated at the door
| and a homeless guy with a cart would pick it up weekly
| and get it recycled.
|
| They were pretty much running a public utility service
| I'd otherwise have to pay for with taxes.
| me_me_me wrote:
| > If littering is equivalent to throwing money, you simply
| won't do it.
|
| I have learnt that when organising events at work
| (sponsored by workplace), you have to charge people. Any
| amount like EUR5, its two cups of coffee but turn-up rate
| is in high 90% of people that paid upfront. Without
| charging any money its 50-60%
|
| The number of people that sign up were pretty similar, so I
| hazard a guess that risk aversion was at play.
|
| Its a powerful tool even if you know about it.
| oaiey wrote:
| > Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your
| empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel
| about that though...
|
| It becomes a respectful cooperation. When you party in a
| park, you place your containers next to a trash so a
| homeless can pick it up without searching the trash. They
| basically help you partying hard (and not caring/carrying
| about the bottles) and earn (by hard work) a bit of money.
| runj__ wrote:
| I don't know about "respectful" for both parties. Bottle
| collectors trying to take/steal not yet empty bottles and
| cans has become more of a rule than an exception in parks
| in central Stockholm.
|
| I'm still very much in favour of container deposit but
| I'm growing really tired of forceful collecting.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| The people you're referring to are likely not the same
| kind of people who collect bottles in other countries.
|
| My friend has this jokish ticks screaming out "Min
| pant"(roughly translates into "my cans) when we're a bit
| drunk, referring to this exact problem. It's
| inappropriate to go into further detail than to say he's
| not making fun of any Swedes.
|
| It's one of the downsides of free movement within the EU
| when you're a country that's built on assuming most
| people will do right for themselves, the it breaks.
| _0ffh wrote:
| >"Min pant"(roughly translates into "my cans)
|
| Sounds more like "my deposit" to me.
| freeflight wrote:
| Sounds like "Mein Pfand" to me.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Sure, I find it easier to translate English to Swedish
| than the other way around I guess.
|
| Though they are referring to your soon to be recycled
| cans and bottles when semi-agressively trying to steal
| them from you.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It would be "my pawn", translated more literally.
|
| Some people find this amusing.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| I see such behavior here in Germany sometimes, too. Like
| everywhere else in life, there are nice bottle
| collectors, and there are assholes.
|
| One collector gave me a sticky, wet butt, because he
| snuck up behind us in a park, "stole" my half empty beer
| bottle I placed next to me, and then proceeded to empty
| it out right there. It was one of the very few times I
| had trouble controlling myself not to hit somebody... I
| managed to control myself in the end enough to avoid
| violence, but was still angry enough to call the cops on
| the guy. Cops told him to not show up in the park or
| surrounding parks for the rest of the day, and when they
| asked if I wanted to press charges (technically it was
| theft and damage of property), the collector waved a 20
| Euro note for "cleaning costs", which I took instead. I
| felt that was punishment enough.
|
| Then again, there is plenty of bottle collectors who are
| rather polite, and humbly ask if you're done with the
| bottle and if they can have it. And a lot of people also
| gather together their empty bottles in a pile when they
| see a collector approaching.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I'm quite disappointed you didn't press charges to he
| honest, (s)he must've understood perfectly what (s)he was
| doing and the consequences, yet he still did it. And
| you're likely not the only person abused like that.
|
| Yes there are loads of nice appreciative collectors and
| they are doing us a service, it's just sad when the
| predators come and ruin it.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| My hope was that involving the cops was scary enough
| (they took down the details of that person, and issued a
| formal order to vacate), and that the immediate monetary
| "punishment" in form of those 20 bucks (which is a lot of
| bottles) helped too. I felt it was a reasonable severe
| response to what happened. Causing that guy a lot of
| legal trouble, aside from clogging up the legal system
| with not even 20 bucks worth of damages, seemed
| unreasonable.
|
| Those cops are also regularly working that area (they in
| fact were already in the park when I called, and I had
| seen them before doing their rounds), and if that bottle
| collector violated their order to vacate, it would have
| had actual consequences. And if he pulls the same shit
| again, the cops will have a "you again moment", and
| probably mention that to the next person who makes a
| complaint and at the very least issue a much longer order
| to vacate. And since they didn't mention anything to me,
| I am assuming it was the first time the cops were called
| on that guy, and we Germans have a tendency to call the
| cops quite often ;)
|
| It also saved me from a lot of hassle myself, of course,
| not having to go to the police to give a signed
| statement, maybe show up in court, etc.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Sounds like a smaller city? My assumption is based on
| recognition of the recycler, that wouldn't happen around
| here.
| strajk wrote:
| How much is a deposit compared to the full price of a
| drink?
|
| Here in Czechia it's 3czk deposit for ~20czk full drink
| price and I've never noticed anybody even asking for the
| bottles, yet alone "stealing" them.
| msh wrote:
| In DK it goes up to 3 DKR for a 1,5 liters bottle of soda
| that you might pay 15-25 dkr for.
| freeflight wrote:
| All these deposits are so low. Germany has 25 cent on
| non-beer plastic bottles.
|
| Which means when buying a 1,5 liters bottle of water, the
| bottle is worth more (25 cent) than the water in it (19
| cent).
|
| Bottle collectors are quite common, haven't met any rude
| ones myself, but they are even speed-collecting trough
| the trash cans of trains stopped making stops at the
| station.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The prices are in Danish crowns, and aren't that far away
| from the German ones, although some consideration should
| be made for the higher cost of living here.
|
| Glass bottles, normal cans: 1kr = 13C/
|
| Small plastic bottles: 1.5kr = 20C/
|
| Large plastic bottles (>= 1L): 3kr = 40C/
|
| https://danskretursystem.dk/en/about-deposits/deposit-
| marks-...
| qw wrote:
| i have seen some trash cans in Oslo with a separate
| cylinder for bottles that gives easy access to the
| bottles. I hope this becomes more popular, so that they
| don't have to dig through the trash cans.
| newsclues wrote:
| It can become a disrespectful cooperation as well.
|
| I've had people rummage through recycling bin for cans
| and leaving a mess, I've seen fights over who gets to
| collect cans, and I've seen trespassing to collect cans
| from people's private porches.
|
| When collecting cans goes from a lucrative hobby to a
| business, problems arise.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I remember asking a German friend why people were leaving
| the bottles on top of the bins when we went to a football
| match.
|
| Growing up in Scotland collecting Irn Bru bottles was
| something you could do for "sweetie" money. I was
| disappointed the last time I looked to find out that they
| have now decommissioned their bottle cleaning plant.
| Apparently conventional recycling has resulted in the
| rate of return being too low.
| adam-a wrote:
| They are planning to bring it back in Scotland, as a more
| univeral scheme like the GP descirbes in Norway. The
| timeline keeps getting pushed back due to lobbying from
| the drinks industry though:
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/14/scotland-
| del...
| berkes wrote:
| In Germany -at least the cities I'm familiar with-
| everyone places their cans and bottles next to the trash-
| can. German bottles often have "pfand gehort daneben"
| (Deposits belong next to it) printed on them[0]. And some
| cities even placed special holders alongside the
| trashcans[1].
|
| Like with many things, Germans have made deposit
| collection into an efficient job.
|
| [0] https://kaiserkiwi.de/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/06/fritz-kola-... [1]
| https://www.linksfraktion-
| hannover.de/fileadmin/fraktionhann...
| carlmr wrote:
| The only issue is that glass bottles are too cheap and
| heavy.
|
| They should at least have a 25 cent deposit as well.
| Right now no homeless person picks those up, because it's
| just not worth it.
|
| Even with 25 cents there would still be a disincentive
| due to the weight, but I also don't want to incentivize
| bottle makers to produce more plastic, for them to lower
| the price at the counter.
| tobltobs wrote:
| It is 25 cent for glas, plastic bottles or cans in
| Germany.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Nope, glass bottles are just 8 cents.
| z02d wrote:
| Glass bottles are 8 cents, if they are re-use. Re-use
| glass bottles with a clip closure are 15 cent (and there
| are still some other kind of bottles with 15 cent). If
| they are only single use, they are 25 cents (e.g. beer
| from Lidl).
| rndgermandude wrote:
| I really wish it was that easy, but it's not.
|
| Single-use containers are 25 cents, indeed, but a lot of
| the stuff you will buy is multi-use, and there things
| vary. Multi-use plastic bottles and large glass bottles
| usually have a 15 cents deposit, and small beer glass
| bottles it is only 8 cents, unless they have a clip-lock
| (Flensburger e.g.) then it's 15 cents again. Vine bottles
| are extremely confusing, ranging from no deposit, to 2 or
| 3 cents, to 15 cents.
|
| I saw a lot of bottle collector people skip glass
| bottles, in particular beer bottles. I live close to a
| minor league football (soccer) stadium that also hosts
| the local American Football team and various other
| events, and bottle collectors are a constant sight
| before, during and after the games and events. The two
| closest city tram stops are quite often still littered
| all over with multi-use beer bottles even days after,
| because bottle collectors do not like those things. Too
| heavy and bulky at only 8 cents. People "litter"
| deliberately, being told the bottle collector people will
| be happy and thankful for the easy collection...
|
| If I remember correctly, this difference in deposit
| amount was justified by reasoning lower multi-use
| deposits compared to single-use deposits would drive the
| adoption of multi-use. I don't think it has done that
| much, not really. When single-use deposits became a
| thing, a lot of single-use containers vanished
| completely, but once the collection systems got
| established a lot of it just returned.
|
| I personally would outlaw most types of single-use
| containers, especially for "cold" beverages, and actually
| make the deposits all the same amount. That would have a
| far better and greater impact than bickering about
| outlawing plastic straws, at the very least. And a glass
| beer bottle might be worth picking up if it's 25 cents
| you get for it instead of 8.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> Single-use containers are 25 cents, indeed, but a lot
| of the stuff you will buy is multi-use, and there things
| vary. Multi-use plastic bottles and large glass bottles
| usually have a 15 cents deposit, and small beer glass
| bottles it is only 8 cents, unless they have a clip-lock
| (Flensburger e.g.) then it 's 15 cents again. Vine
| bottles are extremely confusing, ranging from no deposit,
| to 2 or 3 cents, to 15 cents._
|
| To add to all of that confusion; Some brands of yogurt in
| glass jars also have a deposit on them, while most other
| yogurt glasses don't.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| Right, indeed. Glass jars (usually) have a deposit when
| they are "multi-use", while single-use plastic containers
| (and some single-use glass ones) do not. I lost many
| euros thanks to that, because I didn't know for a long
| time, and dumped my yogurt glass jars into the normal
| glass collection containers. It would have been easy to
| collect the deposits, since I am doing that for all the
| bottles I use anyway. :P
| orangepurple wrote:
| I don't understand the point of recycling glass. Most
| glass is mostly sand, an abundant raw material.
| gruez wrote:
| AFAIK it's because the initial sand -> glass process is
| energy intensive, much more so than melting existing
| glass.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Garbage collectors don't want to handle glass when it's
| mixed in with the other waste. So it is already collected
| separately. Might as well recycle it.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Most glass is mostly sand, an abundant raw material.
|
| Sand is not actually an abundant raw material [0].
| Although sand in general _is_ abundant, sand that is
| usable for construction and manufacturing is generally
| found on beaches and flood-plains - desert sand is less
| angular and usable. We extract 50 billion tonnes of sand
| per year and this is getting worse as a result of
| continued massive urbanisation. Ocean dredging for sand
| has significant ecological input.
|
| This might not be why glass recycling started, but it
| suggests an incentive for continuing to do so.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-
| world-is...
| wreckdropibex wrote:
| You would imagine sand was abundant, but:
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-
| world-is...
|
| Also, glass can be recycled near infinitely and 1 ton of
| glass created from recycled glass requires 30% less
| energy than from raw materials:
| https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-
| juomapakk...
|
| Also, in another world:
|
| - 87% of recyclable glass bottles are recycled
| https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-
| juomapakk...
|
| - 97% of reusable glass bottles are returned for reuse
| https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-
| juomapakk...
|
| - Reusable glass bottles are reused on AVERAGE 33 times
| https://www.ekopullo.fi/fi/
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Yeh until the machines reject your four crates of beer
| for no reason and you're in that limbo of "do I care
| about EUR10 enough to lug these to another edeka or not"
| ;)
| rob74 wrote:
| Yeah, most people are considerate enough to either take
| their bottles with them or put them somewhere where they
| can be collected easily, as you wrote. And, even if beer
| bottles only have 8 cents deposit, are heavy, stinky and
| the remaining beer may run out, they do get collected
| sometimes. But, to avoid the impression that in Germany
| everything works perfectly, I should also mention the
| (maybe fewer) others, who don't care about the 8 cents
| and simply smash the bottles on the sidewalk for "fun".
| As a cyclist, I have a special love for this second
| category...
| Semaphor wrote:
| Same in Germany, there is also the "Pfand gehort daneben"
| (Deposit [bottles] belong next [to the trashcan]) campaign,
| often with bottle holder on the trash can.
|
| The whole deposit system is extremely convenient when you are
| drinking in the park or beach, where you usually don't want
| to bring all the bottles back again, but you'll get people
| coming by and ask if you have any deposit bottles to give to
| them.
| subpixel wrote:
| Isn't there a decline in deposit bottle usage in Germany?
|
| When I was a kid beer was delivered to your house by the
| crate and empties picked up. I was led to believe this has
| become less common, which would be regrettable bc it was
| elegantly efficient.
| laulis wrote:
| There's Flaschenpost[1] in some cities, and afaik it's
| pretty popular. Me and my partner use it pretty
| regularly.
|
| [1] https://www.flaschenpost.de/
| dark-star wrote:
| wow, what a badly designed site. I can't even look at it
| because it keeps pestering me with some popup that asks
| for my ZIP code (which I don't want to provide, as I just
| want to know what that page is all about)
| ratww wrote:
| Every other month I see old products going from
| "disposable" to "with deposit". So I don't think so. The
| latest for me were the tiny juice bottles from Rewe. 25c
| Pfand.
| subpixel wrote:
| Edit: it's reusable/refillable bottles that I am
| remembering and referring to, and I'm happy to say the
| system in Germany seems to be strong, per Google.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Deliveries, I don't know. But every sparkling water, beer
| bottle has deposit as have all (?) cans. So a decline
| would be kinda impossible unless people stop buying
| those.
| ls15 wrote:
| > Same in Germany
|
| Too many stores refuse to take bottle types that they don't
| sell though. I am often left with one or two bottles that
| technically should be eligible, but I have to take them
| back with me. The Norwegian way seems more convenient for
| consumers.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I think from a certain size on, they have to take them
| back. I understand smaller stores not wanting/having to
| bother. But maybe I'm wrong, after all I almost
| exclusively buy from REWE, so it's never something I
| encounter personally.
| ls15 wrote:
| I think my most recent experience was a LIDL that
| wouldn't take a beer bottle from REWE.
| ratww wrote:
| Same. My local Lidl doesn't sell any Glas bottle at all,
| so that's why they don't take it.
| distances wrote:
| I encounter this mostly when buying craft beer from a
| specialized store. These import bottles have Pfand too,
| but you can't return them to any machine. Have to
| remember which ones go back to the craft beer shop. Which
| is kinda obvious though, so I'm not complaining.
| EE84M3i wrote:
| >Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept
| the containers in return
|
| How does this work for convenience stores or other non-
| supermarkets that incidentally sell drinks in cans/bottles?
| They have to have a machine?
| qw wrote:
| The machine is completely optional and just there to save
| time if they get a lot of deposits. They can handle it
| manually if they want to.
|
| There is a limit to how large the deposit can be for stores
| without a machine. If you come with a big trash bag with
| bottles/cans, they have the right to refuse and refer you
| to a place with a machine (most grocery stores have
| machines)
| ubercore wrote:
| At least where I am in Norway, there are far more grocery
| stores, but they're all smaller. So there are, relative to
| the US, fewer pure "convenience" stores, and more small
| groceries. Not sure if this holds true everywhere, but
| thought it added some context to your question.
| bouvin wrote:
| At least here in Denmark, they very often do. If they do
| not, you can just hand the empty to the shopkeeper and they
| will reimburse you.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| In MI it is the same, small stores manually do it. You hand
| them a box with 12 cans in it and they credit you $1.20
| bell-cot wrote:
| My experience in MI* is that a fair number of stores can
| be rather sticky about returns - "we don't sell that
| brand", "did you buy it here?", "come back when the
| machine is fixed", etc.
|
| Conveniently, I live in a large-enough urban area to just
| take my business elsewhere.
|
| *Michigan, U.S.A.
| ratww wrote:
| Michigan's 10 cent rate is part of the plot of the
| legendary Seinfeld episode "The Bottle Deposit".
|
| In this episode Kramer and Newman scheme a plan to
| deliver bottles from New York (where deposit was only 5c)
| to Michigan to cash in.
| oaiey wrote:
| Well, not everyone needs to do a reverse vending machine.
| Just hand them back to the cashier and he returns you
| money. Goes that far that when a restaurant sells a full
| bottle they need to take it back.
|
| We have this system also in Germany since the late 80s (I
| think) and it works very well. Current incentive ranges
| from 8ct (beer glass bottles ... beer lobby always has
| exceptions ;)) to 25ct (plastic bottles)
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Do the bottles need to be full size, or do they accept
| crushed ones?
| MandieD wrote:
| The lightweight plastic ones are "Einweg" ("single use"),
| and the deposit is to get the material back for recycling
| - as long as the deposit label will scan, it's accepted.
| It's easier to scan them in the automats if they're not
| crushed; my German husband does not seem to have fully
| internalized this, so I reinflate them when they get
| rejected.
|
| Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are
| "Mehrweg" ("multi-use"), and they actually want a bottle
| to sterilize and reuse (preferably with metal lid in the
| case of the milk and joghurt bottles), so if it's broken,
| it's technically trash and should go in the Altglas (old
| glass) containers you see at least once in every city
| neighborhood.
| ratww wrote:
| _> Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are
| "Mehrweg" ("multi-use")_
|
| There is also a special case of a Mehrweg 1L plastic
| bottle, used mostly by Coca Cola. It is also sterilised
| before reuse.
|
| _> preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and
| joghurt bottles_
|
| Ooops, I didn't know that. Thank you.
| max_hammer wrote:
| If barcode is readable they accept semi-crushed bottles.
| biztos wrote:
| For plastic bottles at least for the machine you would
| have to un-crush it, it scans the bottle.
|
| For beer bottles, I dunno, try it out and report back?
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| It would be quite a long trip for me to try it.
| ratww wrote:
| How do you crush a beer bottle? They're always glass, no?
|
| Or do you mean the beer can? In this case they can't be
| crushed, because the barcode has to be readable!
|
| A friend tried hehe. If they're not too damaged you can
| put them back into shape, the machine is quite robust.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I live in the US, and all grocery stores I have been to have
| those reverse vending machines.
|
| I also never bother to return my bottles and cans, because
| it's still a waste of my time. I put all bottles and cans in
| the recycling, along with anything else recyclable (on the
| backend, almost everything goes to a landfill anyway. But
| that's not my problem.)
|
| Edit: for those asking, I have lived in multiple New England
| states, and bottle return machines have been common in all of
| them.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I'm in the Midwest, USA, never seen such a reverse vending
| machine...
| [deleted]
| longbrass wrote:
| In many places while they may be required, their position
| is relegated to the back or hidden side of the building. I
| imagine this is because most shoppers do not return their
| bottles and cans... while some consider those who endeavor
| to do so "unsightly" or a "traffic hazard."
| umvi wrote:
| Where in the US? The US is like 50 different mini countries
| - I've never seen this and I've lived in 6 different
| states.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I've not seen them in the US. Maybe I've seen them on
| Supermarket Sweep, though
| https://supermarketsweep.fandom.com/wiki/Recycling_Center
| :)
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I'm guessing the New England states were Maine,
| Massachusetts, Vermont, and/or Connecticut? (not new
| hampshire or rhode island, which don't have deposit laws).
|
| My guess it that these machines are only going to be in
| states with deposit laws, and it's likely the grocery
| stores are legally required to take returns (whether by
| machine or human).
|
| There are 10 states with bottle deposit laws (which mostly
| predate consumer recycling): California, Connecticut,
| Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York,
| Oregon, and Vermont.
|
| I suspect a much higher percentage of material actually
| gets recycled from bottles returned via deposit law
| mechanisms, compared to US standard "single stream"
| residential recycling, which are kind of notorious for
| their low rate of actual recycling (material taken away
| from homes actually being recycled) due to contamination
| and expense of separation.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I've never seen one at a supermarket in California. Even
| the recycling centers near me don't have them, although I
| think some do.
|
| I've seen them in Michigan, though.
| bemmu wrote:
| At the large Finnish LAN party / demoscene event Assembly,
| there are people who go around all the desks collecting the
| cans and bottles people leave on them. I wonder how much they
| make doing this, considering there are thousands of desks
| with everyone consuming energy drinks and soda nonstop.
| mattl wrote:
| I once paid for most of my trip to a hacker event in
| Germany by picking up and returning all the discarded
| bottles of beer and Club Mate. It took maybe two hours.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > to give the collectors a living wage.
|
| Why would this be a goal?
| relaxing wrote:
| 1. Cans need to be collected
|
| 2. Everyone needs a living wage
|
| Hope this helps.
| jstanley wrote:
| If the value of having the cans collected is less than the
| cost of having someone collect them, then it turns out the
| cans don't need to be collected after all.
| umvi wrote:
| > 2. Everyone needs a living wage
|
| I think everyone would agree with this, but phrased
| slightly differently I don't think everyone would agree:
|
| "Every method of making money must be capable of generating
| a living wage for the person using that method"
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| >> 2. Everyone needs a living wage
|
| > I think everyone would agree with this
|
| Are you kidding? You'd have to be insane to agree with
| that. Some people are already independently wealthy. Some
| people -- a really large number of people -- are
| supported by other people.
| kebman wrote:
| The cost of food is suppressed, because our elites, leaders and
| politicians know what happens when that too is subjected to
| inflation as well, and that is revolution. Meanwhile, as far as
| I can see, the frog-boiling of regular people has been steady
| at least since the 60's. Back then the cost of a nice apartment
| was about one or two years pay. Today it's easily 10 years pay,
| and so the former middle class opt out of having children
| because all value property is too high for them to afford.
| Meanwhile the only promise our elites are willing to give us,
| is that we'll own nothing and be happy. Well, we'll see about
| that. Because what's happening now is that they are now unable
| to keep inflation from also seeping into everyday products. Gas
| and power is already buckling here in Europe, and I suspect
| food prices will be next. Unless they can control it, then
| social unrest is sure to follow.
| pxtail wrote:
| > former middle class opt out of having children because all
| value property is too high for them to afford
|
| Don't worry, just go ahead and don't forget to wince when
| looking at demographics stats, South Korea and Japan will be
| your guide.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Yet in Japan housing is a deflationary asset for at least
| last 20 years.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Don't forget the wonderful American invention of the "gig
| economy". Minimum wage, healthcare, job security? No we must
| destroy everything our ancestors fought for.
| gambiting wrote:
| The cost of drinks largely hasn't increased in line with
| inflation, so you'd very quickly arrive at an unsustainable
| situation where returning a can/bottle would give you more
| money than it cost you to buy it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Why is this unsustainable? You would still have to pay for
| the drink and deposit before you get the deposit back.
| dmurray wrote:
| For one, it would increase the attractiveness of fraud
| where the same bottle is sold in multiple jurisdictions
| with different deposit rates. Instead of collecting trash
| across the border, buy cans there by the truckload, bring
| them back across state lines, empty them and redeem them
| for the "deposit" you never paid.
|
| Of course, there are some plausible technological or
| political solutions to this. But it does change the
| economics.
| caslon wrote:
| Isn't arbitrage like that just how markets are supposed
| to work? Still ends up with the cans redeemed and
| disposed, just goes about it in such a way that the
| maximum amount of value is extracted from them.
| dmurray wrote:
| No. This is almost the opposite of a market-based system.
| Aluminium cans are artificially made available only at
| tens or hundreds of times their cost to produce.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Aluminium cans are artificially made available only at
| tens or hundreds of times their cost to produce.
|
| You forgot externalized costs... add the cost of cleaning
| up after irresponsible people leaving behind their cans
| wherever they want or the added costs and pollution of
| making a can from fresh aluminium ore (bauxite), and
| suddenly that "ten or hundred times" becomes "at cost".
|
| Deposits are a regulatory way to account for externalized
| costs, at least to a bit.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The deposit has nothing to do with the dirtiness of
| mining. It's so that people like you don't see a can
| blowing in the wind.
|
| If it were about the mining the deposit would be on
| everything else made of aluminum too.
|
| Of all the things to let into the environment aluminum is
| one of the least worst. As with everything else, it's yet
| another story about how narratives, marketing, knee jerk
| reactions and bike shedding are the name of the game when
| it comes to public policy.
| mft_ wrote:
| ...which is easy enough to fix with bar codes.
|
| This is how it works in Germany. You pay a deposit on
| every bottle. To get your money back requires a machine
| to recognise each bottle/can as legitimate, based on the
| bar code.
|
| Now, yes, people could print stickers with fake bar codes
| on... but I don't think that would work well at the scale
| of the major fraud operation you're envisaging...
| eru wrote:
| And the German system is a bit silly, too.
|
| The Einwegpfand was supposed (I guess?) to make
| Einwegflaschen go away and promote Mehrwegflaschen.
|
| As far as I can tell, retail outlets just got good at
| crushing Einwegflaschen. An investment in capability that
| benefitted basically no one.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > An investment in capability that benefitted basically
| no one.
|
| There is a benefit: You rarely find plastic bottles and
| beer cans in the environment any more.
| lampe3 wrote:
| Really? I live in Hamburg, Germany. The amount of broken
| glass bottles is amazing...
|
| I lived in Hamburg for almost 30 years, but the city was
| never dirtier than it is right now.
| csunbird wrote:
| Same in Berlin, I had to replace my bike's tires more
| than once.
|
| Replying to sibling comment: The incentive is to not
| break the bottle, but return it instead.
| gambiting wrote:
| I imagine the part of the problem is that once the bottle
| is broken, or the barcode is damaged, there is no
| incentive to return it anymore.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| After the can gets accepted by the machine it gets
| crushed and sold in bulk to a 3rd party. That 3rd party
| is buying and selling by weigh and is usually the one
| who's usually getting the government check. So all
| barcodes do is reduce casual fraud. The pros are already
| injecting it higher up the supply chain.
| dmurray wrote:
| Do they use a different bar code on bottles sold in
| Germany to those sold by the same producer in bordering
| countries? That's something American producers generally
| don't do for different states (yet?) - they use the same
| label and write the relevant deposit amount for every
| state on the bottle.
| MandieD wrote:
| Yes, they are different between Germany and Austria,
| which otherwise share labeling for everything - the water
| and juice bottles I bought while skiing in Austria were
| rejected for return when I got home to Germany, despite
| being from brands also widely sold here.
| alibarber wrote:
| From my experience of Denmark -> Finland, yes.
|
| There's a beer I like that's cheaper and easier to order
| direct from the Danish brewery than buy from the alcohol
| monopoly in Finland. The cans look identical. Of course I
| tried putting them in the return machine, but it would
| not credit them (although they'll still take them in for
| recycling)
|
| People also buy huge quantities of beer personally from
| Estonia (2 hr boat ride, nice day trip) and the system
| would probably collapse in a day if they paid for cans
| from anywhere.
|
| I crush any that I know won't give money before putting
| them with the household metal recycling collection as I
| don't want some poor soul wasting their time fishing them
| out and returning them.
| unwind wrote:
| In Sweden, and probably most of Europe as far as I would
| guess, the European/International Article Number [1]
| barcode system is used. It encodes the country first, so
| yes.
|
| You cannot get cash from foreign cans or PET bottles,
| since the deposit was not paid here.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Articl
| e_Number
| dmurray wrote:
| The EAN definitely doesn't indicate the country where the
| product was sold. In your Swedish supermarket, I expect
| you'll find plenty of products with Danish or German EANs
| (certainly that's the case in Ireland).
|
| As your linked article says, "The first three digits of
| the EAN-13 (GS1 Prefix) usually identify the GS1 Member
| Organization which the manufacturer has joined (not
| necessarily where the product is actually made)"
| alibarber wrote:
| I live in Finland, it has this system, the UK where I'm
| from does not, you just squash your cans and bottles into
| a weekly recycling collection.
|
| It's the 'squash' bit that I miss and makes me hate the
| deposit system. You have to keep the cans all fully
| intact, so the machine can read the barcode, so you have
| to give up stacks of room in your house and carry an
| awkward big bag of mostly air around to return them.
| cjrp wrote:
| Do you know if they need the cans in their original shape
| in order to recycle them? If it's just to keep the
| barcode intact, presumably it could be printed on the
| can's base instead.
| alibarber wrote:
| That's one of the best ideas I've heard in a while.
|
| You sort of have to lay the can sideways on a belt and it
| spins it around before scanning the barcode, then it
| carries it to the appropriate bin internally (where it
| gets crushed). In my opinion it's a waste of time, the
| machines are sticky and smelly and I feel sorry for the
| staff who have to go and un-jam them regularly, but on
| the upside you won't see any littering around the place
| (well, in summer you will - it's socially acceptable just
| to toss them on the ground but someone will be along to
| pick it up within minutes)
| markdown wrote:
| > it would increase the attractiveness of fraud where the
| same bottle is sold in multiple jurisdictions with
| different deposit rates.
|
| Doesn't matter which way you slice it, it doesn't pay.
| The exception is if you can ship it on Mothers's Day.
| midasuni wrote:
| If it had kept up with inflation a 45c bottle including 10c
| deposit in 1980 would be $1.52 including 33c deposit today
|
| Instead it's about $2
| mbreese wrote:
| The math a bit tougher than that. The volume of soda
| bottles is different now than in 1980. And most bottles
| aren't glass, but plastic. Even the glass ones use
| different glass and cans use different amounts of aluminum.
| I agree that deposit values haven't kept pace, but there
| are more variables at play.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I doubt the volume of the soda bottle affects the cost to
| the manufacturer much. Soda prices are rarely linear to
| their size. At my local supermarket a 2-liter bottle from
| the aisle is typically cheaper than a 20oz from the
| fridge by the register.
| mbreese wrote:
| For plastic, you're right. I think they use the same
| blanks for multiple sizes of bottles. For glass bottles,
| I'm not so sure. I don't remember many plastic bottles in
| the 1980s. They were coming, but I still have glass in my
| head for all but 2L bottles at the time (but I was really
| young). But the point is the majority of bottles you'd
| see for recycling would have been glass (or cans) at that
| time. And the amount of materials used for packaging was
| different back then.
| gnicholas wrote:
| It can never give you more than it cost -- the redemption
| value gets added to the cost of the beverage. So a $1 bottle
| of Coke would cost $1.05 if the redemption value were 5C/ And
| it would cost $1.50 if the redemption value were 50C/.
|
| The reason the redemption value has not gone up much is that
| people would balk at paying so much for the goods upfront,
| IMO. Adding 20C/ per can would add nearly $5 to the cost of a
| 24-pack or soda. The cost per ounce of soda drops
| dramatically when you buy in volume, so the redemption value
| would grow to be a substantial portion of the total cost for
| larger purchases.
| kebman wrote:
| 'It is incredible what people can pay in tax if they just
| get used to it.'
|
| -- Erik Brofoss, former Norwegian minister of finance and
| director of the IMF.
| namdnay wrote:
| It's not a tax..
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Just because you get a rebate for engaging in "desired
| behavior" doesn't make it not a tax.
| namdnay wrote:
| when it's a 100% rebate for the vast majority of people i
| think it does? the money doesn't go to the state, it goes
| to the organisation that handles the recycling, and you
| get a 100% rebate for doing the normal thing
| cgriswald wrote:
| In California the money goes from bottlers to a state
| agency and the program is essentially used to fund
| curbside recycling programs. The costs get passed down to
| consumers. While it's indirect, it's essentially a
| government service you're taxed for that you pay either
| with your wallet or your labor.
|
| Additionally, since the deposit is not exempted from
| sales tax, the consumer also pays more sales tax than
| they would otherwise.
| namdnay wrote:
| the sales tax thing is a bit silly!
|
| for the rest, the only alternative I see would be for the
| government to get ouf of it completely and say it's up to
| each seller/distributor to handle their own bottles, but
| I guess this would require more complicated logistics?
|
| I'm pretty sure that's what happens for glass bottles in
| Germany, I remember bringing back plastic crates of
| bottles to the brewery, and buying beer in big sturdy
| 50cl bottles that had obviously been refilled dozens of
| times already
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| They would soon get used to it. People are hardly going to
| give up drinking sugary soft drinks because of high deposit
| values.
|
| They might be reluctant but if there is no other way to get
| that sugary hit they will do it and eventually it will be
| just how things are done.
| gnicholas wrote:
| You're right that they won't give up drinking soda! But
| the experience of Philadelphia, [1] which imposed a per-
| ounce soda tax (later repealed) shows us that these tend
| to drive consumers to other jurisdictions (NJ) to buy
| groceries. This means Philadelphia lost out not only on
| soda sales, but also on other groceries purchased at the
| same time.
|
| Another issue that arises is that people will actually
| transport recyclables across state lines to arbitrage the
| differences in redemption value. [2] This only happens if
| there are large enough disparities, but in the US this is
| almost certain to happen due to the different policy
| choices made by nearby states.
|
| 1: https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/03/...
|
| 2: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/arrests-
| in-16-million...
| gambiting wrote:
| The thing I don't get about US though......people keep
| pointing out that US States are as big if not bigger than
| most European countries - and over there companies
| somehow manage to create completely unique packaging for
| every country, distribute their product and keep stock of
| what's where. Why not in the US? If this sort of thing is
| enough of an issue, why not make sure that each state
| gets different barcode, or slightly different label or
| whatever, to make sure the bottles are not returnable
| between state lines?
|
| Germany pays a lot more for cans and bottles than Poland
| does, but you can't return Polish bottles and cans in
| German stores because the barcodes and labels are
| different - you can cross the border without any issue,
| but there is no way to exploit the economic imbalance in
| recyclables returns.
| necovek wrote:
| While I see your point about how to solve this problem,
| why is this even a problem "worth" solving? Going back to
| the nuts and bolts: are the bottles and cans any
| different between countries? What is exactly protected
| from accepting "foreign" recyclable materials? In a free
| market, if people start dropping over the border to
| recycle, local price would quickly match up to avoid
| people having to make the trip (somebody would make a
| business out of it, and then original deposit price would
| soon match up with where it's more expensive).
|
| It rather seems to be the other way around: it's easier
| to devise a system where you go by something unique and
| country-specific like a bar-code (to avoid counterfeiting
| business), so that's why it's like that (of course,
| there's also living standard difference between
| countries).
|
| Still, even if there was an incentive discrepancy, it's
| easy for all the countries to match upward since this is
| basically just "loaning" bottles/cans out, and you only
| need to pay out "once" for your regular supply of
| whatever drinks you like to get, and after that, you are
| just re-starting the "loan".
|
| FWIW, it's been like that in Serbia since forever, but
| only for the same product where the producer cared (you'd
| get an entire beer case, and then once you are through
| it, you bring it back to the store, and pick up another
| one): this allowed them to keep the price down and get
| more turnaround for their drinks.
|
| I sure prefer the legal framework that allows returning
| it regardless of the specifics (producer or such).
| jinto36 wrote:
| This did actually happen with bottled water- New York
| State started charging 5-cent deposits on plastic
| disposable bottled water, and so now some bottled-water
| companies sell bottles in non-deposit states with
| different labeling and barcodes. That seems like an
| exception though, since it's not often the case with
| other deposit beverages.
|
| The weird one to me is that- due to various archaic laws-
| in New York state carbonated hard cider in cans or
| bottles is not considered the same as other carbonated
| alcoholic beverages in cans, and is exempt from all the
| deposits. I'm a bit surprised they haven't changed that
| one.
| relaxing wrote:
| No one drove to NJ for groceries, the $5 bridge toll
| would offset any gains. You'd drive to one of the
| surrounding counties in PA, provided you lived close
| enough for the trip to make sense. According to that
| paper, that happened in about 50% of sales, which is
| still a net win in terms of reduced consumption.
|
| Very little is "lost" to the city when that happens,
| because groceries are tax exempt.
| azundo wrote:
| Presumably the owners and operators of the grocery stores
| are losing, and are constituents of the city, pay payroll
| taxes, property taxes, etc.
| namdnay wrote:
| Easy, just make it a federal standard
| gambiting wrote:
| I assumed this was about making money just selling the cans
| to a metal trader, not claiming the redemption cost from
| the stores.
| Ekaros wrote:
| In Finland the deposit is 0.15EUR per can. You quickly
| learn to calculate that out when coming with cost per
| litre... So it only takes some getting used to.
| deepsun wrote:
| Interestingly, ALL the comments here are about how bad it is,
| because, apparently, "NO MONEY = NO HAPPINESS".
|
| Yet I've been blessed to live in several countries, and can speak
| from experience that most poor families I've seen are on average
| more happy than most rich families, in both US and Eastern
| Europe. They only think that they are unhappy, because of the
| constant struggle with money, but I've seen many lives of people
| to think otherwise.
|
| So I'm not that pitiful towards the author. Their parents didn't
| have mental health issues, no one got killed or injured, so I'd
| say they lived mostly happy life, comparing to others.
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