Each morning at 10 o’clock, an elderly woman, her face etched with wrinkles, leaves her apartment near Chinatown in Lower Manhattan with a huge empty garbage bag in hand. From then until three in the afternoon, she scours trash bags for cans, bottles and plastic containers which she hauls to the C-Town supermarket at the Alfred Smith Houses in Lower Manhattan. Her small physique looks out of proportion to the bulky plastic bag she is hauling.
Recycling the bottles and cans at 5 cents a piece, the woman – who would refer to herself only as “Mrs Lau” — makes $20 a day. The amount is half that in winter. And the number of people like her is doubling.
A year has passed since New York State added water bottles to the list of containers New Yorkers can redeem for a nickel. This has boosted the income of people who collect cans for a living. But more money means fiercer competition among the recyclers, longer lines at recycling centers and aggravation for building superintendents who have to clean up after recyclers rip open trash bags and rummage through them searching for cans and bottles.
Recyclers can sometimes recycle up to 2,500 bottles a day. (Photo credit: Cheng Herng Shinn)
Almost 75 percent of the people collecting cans and other recyclables in Lower Manhattan are elderly Chinese, according to “Canman,” an African American man in his late 40s. He said he has been collecting cans for a living for 25 years. He would only refer to himself as “Canman,” explaining that most can collectors do not like to give their names because they feel stigmatized. They are also collectively known as “canners.” “People give you the dirty look when they see you rummage through garbage,” he said. ”It’s almost like the Mafia. A dirty job. But I’m not stealing, it’s honest hard work.”
“There has definitely been a spike in people seeking employment here in Chinatown these past two years.” said Karl Gluck who works at Chinatown Manpower, a community organization responsible for jobs placements for Chinese-speaking people. He said the elderly applicants face an additional barrier.
“I can hardly introduce any sort of work if they speak no English,” he said. “If there are job openings for non-English speakers, it will be hard manual labor which naturally excludes the elderly.”
In her 60s, without a job since 2008 and with no English-speaking ability, Lau turned to can collecting to earn money. She is new to this. She said the experienced Chinese can collectors, mostly elderly women in their 60s and 70s who do this for a living, have verbal agreements with the restaurants in Chinatown where they can haul away up to $100 worth of cans in shopping carts every day. “But can collecting isn’t all that bad; it’s actually quite good exercise.” she said as she sorted though her fifth worn and smeared plastic bag. A sour odor wafts from the bag.
The recycling machines at a Pathmark supermarket on Pike Slip and South Street in Lower Manhattan.
In an underground Pathmark supermarket parking garage not far from the Smith Houses, “Canman” hunched on a beer crate with a cigarette in his calloused left hand while his right nursed a can of beer. He just finished his 13-hour shift.. He works seven days a week scouring sidewalks Midtown to Wall Street in search of cans, taking a different route every day. He earns anywhere from $60 to $125 daily.
With a bad economy, the number of unemployed people has spiked, especially within the Chinese-only speaking community in New York. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, issued by the Labor Department this month, shows the scarcity of jobs. There were about two jobless workers for every job opening when the recession began in 2008. In September of this year, the number had more than doubled to five jobless workers per job opening.
“Canman” said he is divorced and has two daughters who are both in college. His coarse voice rises when the topic turns to his can collection route.
“Now, you see a new face twice a week,” he said. ”New people mean new trouble. I have a family to feed and I can’t feed my family if somebody messes with my bottom line.”
Waste in street baskets in New York City averages 260 tons daily. The recycling rate is roughly 50 percent and this means around 130 tons of recyclables in street baskets head for landfills. From these street baskets, canners collect recyclable cans, plastic and glass bottles which would otherwise be destined for burial.
But complaints from the residents are rising in proportion with the number of canners. Another recycler, who would identify herself only as “Mrs Wong,” 63, is a building maintenance manager as well as a resident of the Smith Houses. She would not give her first name. She was waiting in line with a small bag of recyclables to redeem for cash. The women in front of her had a wagon laden with six bags bloated with cans and bottles. With a furrowed look and strained eyebrows, she mentioned that she has to clean up after recyclers go through the trash.
“These canners just come to the trash bin, rip open the plastic bags, pick up the cans and bottles they need and leave behind a huge mess,” Wong said. “It’s bad when there is food from the garbage strewn all over the place.” she added while recycling just a few bottles.
There is a line of five to six recyclers crowding around the recycling machines at any one time outside the Smith Houses C-Town supermarket. The wait time from the line that forms in the morning can sometimes stretch up to an hour. Juan Fernandez, C-Town supermarket manager, said he has to empty the machines of 40-pound bags worth of crushed plastic or cans every five minutes to accommodate the volume these canners are carting in.
Asked about whether he knows the canners personally, he said no. “I don’t care who they are as long as bring in the cans,” he said. ”They make their money, I make mine.”
