FEATURE - Garbage rule change hits New York scavengers
Date: 19-Sep-02
Country: USA
Author: Yumiko Sakuma
As part of an attempt to dig New York out of a budget crisis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in July that residents need no longer separate their waste glass and plastic - a move that will save $40 million.
New Yorkers, who used to be subject to fines for not disposing of these materials separately for recycling, must now separate out only paper and metal cans.
The change was largely welcomed by residents, but not by the forgotten scavengers who must now to go through bags of stinking garbage to find the glass bottles they redeem for a few pennies each.
Under a New York State law of 1983, manufacturers of cans and bottles must exchange them for five cents each through supermarkets and redemption centres.
According to Guy Polhemus, an advocate for the homeless and director of WE CAN, the only container redemption centre in Manhattan, there are thousands of homeless people and others in New York who take advantage of the law to earn money by collecting recyclable materials.
Ricardo is one of them. Pushing his heavy cart loaded with all his worldly possessions, he moves from street to street checking every rubbish bin searching for the soft drinks cans and glass bottles he redeems for nickels to earn his daily bread.
"This is what I do," said Ricardo. "I am not complaining."
It's a hard life - he must collect hundreds of bottles and cans just to make enough money to pay for food or a cheap place to stay the night.
GARBAGE SACKS
Ricardo, who did not want to give his last name, explained how he finds bottles by rummaging through garbage sacks.
"Bottles used to be in blue plastic bags, so we could just open them and pick bottles up. People don't separate bottles any more. So I have to open dirty bags to find bottles in garbage," he said.
Polhemus agreed that life among the trash cans had just become tougher for people like Ricardo.
"I think stopping the recycling programme, even though it is a half way stop, affected the ability of homeless and poor people to pick up what were readily available containers. It makes it much harder," said Polhemus.
Polhemus founded WE CAN in 1986 to provide the homeless and the poor with a place to exchange cans and bottles for cash after a homeless man died with hundreds of bottles and cans that were turned down by a local supermarket.
WE CAN, which deals with 60 to 200 regulars depending on the season, says full-time redeemers can make $200 a week if they can bring in 4,000 containers.
Polhemus said the homeless are not the only people who depend on recyclables to make money. Low income families and many of the city's working poor do it to boost their meagre wages.
"You see families who supplement income, you see immigrant families (who collect containers as) a weekend thing. But it is a serious thing. It is something that provides $50 to $100 or more a week," Polhemus said. "I think the mayor misses the amount of people who rely on this and provide the service to the city while doing it."
OTHER PEOPLE'S GARBAGE
Another man who frequents WE CAN said he collects bottles for money when he needs extra income. The man, who did not want to give his name, said since July the homeless people who depend on collecting cans and bottles as their only source of income have been complaining about the new rules.
"I am glad I don't do this all the time. If I depended on it it would be a problem because nobody likes to go through other people's garbage," he said.
The homeless who do just that have annoyed some residents because of the mess they leave on the street.
But the New York City Sanitation Department played down the issue. Press officer Kathy Dawkins said: "While we've heard some concerns of people scavenging through garbage looking for returnable plastic and glass bottles, it is not a major problem."
She defended the city's move, saying: "It was a very difficult decision to cut the recycling programme, but a $5 billion budget defi
