Toronto’s Chinese bottle ladies | Hacker News Reader

Toronto’s Chinese bottle ladies

theglobeandmail.com

95 pointsdevy42 comments

I'm sure this is a common phenomena anywhere with bottle deposits, but everywhere I've lived in the GTA has had at least one of these people.

They can be polarizing. Some hate them, some are indifferent, others appreciate them. To the city they're a nuisance, because they take recycling money out of the pocket of the municipality. To some residents they're considered a threat or an annoyance, afraid of theft or annoyed by noise in the middle of the night.

Personally, I appreciate these people. I will collect my bottles and leave them out on a discarded table that sits in an alley on the route of the bottle collecter currently informally serving my neighbourhood. I live in a downtown area known as a party spot, so he does reduce a fair amount of litter by collecting the empties discarded just about everywhere.

It's reassuring that somebody sober is out on the streets and alleys at night. If somebody passes out or is otherwise in trouble, he may be the only person that would discover them.

> To the city they're a nuisance, because they take recycling money out of the pocket of the municipality.

For the metal cans, maybe, but minimally for the bottles.

Scrap glass isn't worth much, but the ones the bottle ladies' returns get refilled, which is far less energy-intensive than recycling.

Wouldn't the city be able to collect the bottle deposit too? I'm assuming 5-15 cents each is much more than they'd get by recycling the glass.

The whole point of bottle deposit laws is to motivate individuals to return the bottles, so the municipality doesn't have to deal with it.

To me it's so much better if some people can take care of this specialized and noble task. I'd hope the municipality would make it more convenient for recyclers to do their work and get more income from it.

All glass (deposit or not) goes into one smashy-smashy pile, so the city loses the deposit value.

The nuisance factor for me when I lived in Boston (25 years ago; hopefully recycling has improved since then) was that homeless people would tear open the rubbish bags looking for containers that could be turned in for cash. If even a few people were lazy and threw deposit containers in the trash, the rest of us paid the price.

Where I've lived in boston none of the bottle collectors would do that for fear of getting the cops called. They did dig through the recycling bins, but everything would be back on the bin by the time they were done

And if it's anything like where I am, half the street is wide awake from the noise.

No actually, they kept to daylight hours and we're generally friendly and open to conversation. I had more issues from the town's construction. They wouldn't necessarily start construction at 6 am but they would certainly show up to the site and start yelling back and forth while noisily getting their equipment out of their cars

There is an easy fix for that problem. http://www.mx.dk/diashow/10018/10018-nxKHn_DMNPJM9YkDieCiyQ....

> because they take recycling money out of the pocket of the municipality

I was curious if the municipality is doing a good job of recycling but couldn't find numbers. Like for the city of Santa Clara, what percentage of the recycling is brought in by the municipality. I kind of think it is probably lower than that brought in by competitive commercial entities.

I did find:

"Recycling rates were up for all material types: aluminum rose to 85 percent, compared to 83 percent between January and June 2007; glass rose to 79 percent from 71; and the most common plastic, No. 1 PET, increased to 63 percent from 58."

None of the numbers are above 90, and PET is about 60% so having more people like this who bring these numbers up is a good thing.

There are quite a few of these ladies in San Francisco too. They have enormous bags filled bottles and cans, which can sometimes stink with the remnants of old beer or soda. They ride public transport between locations with their huge bags taking up a seat next to them. Sometimes the bus driver or passengers object but mostly people just leave them alone.

They represent a testament to hard work, even in later life, that few cultures manage to exemplify quite like the Chinese seem to do.

"They represent a testament to hard work, even in later life, that few cultures manage to exemplify quite like the Chinese seem to do."

Really? I can't think of a culture/society where people that need to work hard don't do so...even into old age. Even as migrants to America, the first and sometimes second generation bring a strong work ethic with them. I'm sure the Chinese are very hard working...but they're hardly an exception if you look around the world.

The Chinese who are in their 50+ probably is the most hard working people, even in China. If you check history, when they are young, china is very poor. A lot of them may have a memory of starvation.

You are right, the Chinese in the young generation are not as hard working now. (Maybe I am geting old)

There's one in Oakland around Lake Merritt. She's been around as long as I have (15+ years). I've always wondered where she goes at night.

I’m sure there is more than just one. :) I live in Lake Merritt too and one of them is always rooting through our trash and recycling bins, even when some residents have tried asking her not to.

I haven't read the article yet, but I would rather that my trash and recyclables were strictly between me and the processing plant. For one thing, we all throw out paper with loads of exploitable information. Secondly, I am fairly certain the Bay Area sorts its trash after collection, so extracting recyclables earlier in the process isn't really of consequence.

Humans sort it later in the process. The elderly are just sorting it a little earlier.

> She lives close by, in a house near the big Cadbury chocolate factory.

I used to live right near there; the Cadbury factory is on Gladstone just north of Dundas street. If she owns that house with her husband, it's probably worth just a bit north of a CAD $1 million. Just the rent on a semi-decent house in that neighbourhood would be at least $2,500/month, if not $3,000.

We have had some interesting run-ins with scrap collectors. In part because Sunnyvale (or at least their garbage contractor) uses the proceeds from the the sale of recyclables to offset costs of collection. Thus when someone raids the recycle bin for the cans and bottles, it takes money away from the garbage company that was nominally discounting garbage fees based on expected returns. The city council made an ordinance to allow the police to stop people from doing that.

When I hired the janitorial company at the office I included in the contract that they could keep any proceeds they collected from extracting recyclables in the office trash. For me the benefit was that it didn't matter which can you threw out recyclables in, the janitorial staff would sort them out and recycle them. It gave them a bit more money in their pocket, and it made it easier on folks trying to figure out which can to use for what.

they would have done that anyways. they also take discarded cardboard boxes and other re-usables.

I live in a microstudio condo building in SoMA, San Francisco. Rent is ~$2000. It's always surreal to see this old lady with an asian "carrying pole" in the elevator. There's no rent control here or government sponsored housing of sorts. Either the lady makes a lot of money doing this (doubtful), or some generous person is letting her live for free (these are ~100 square feet microstudios, barely space to roommate), or she's doing this as a hobby, or I just lack imagination. (For context, we're 10 feet away from a Whole Foods, and Uber's self driving garage).

Most of them probably live with their children, so they do not pay the rent.

For Most of the old people collecting bottles, when they were young, China is very poor and have to work very hard to get enough food. I guess they are in the habit of hard working.

Do something and get some reward, even it is so small, is very different form do nothing.

In the article, "June" get a way to communicate with the neighborhood, and the people are kind to her. In this kind of mutual kindness, She feel her life.

She is probably doing it because she likes the work. She feels good earning a bit of money even if she doesn't really need it. The sense of fulfillment is probably worth a lot more than the actual monetary value. Lots of us derive happiness from work or from feeling useful.

I know at least one old timer (early eighties) that gets really happy when heading over to exchange his bag of aluminum cans. He lives in his daughters home and he doesn't really need money. My thinking is that it makes him happy to earn a bit of money completely on his own, at his age.

Indeed they live with family and the can money go to gambling at all those Chinese seniors clubs. A woman who used to clean out the cans here now hires other women to do it and runs a little recycling empire that ends up on the Mahjong table.

There's also a culture of no waste from that generation my friend's grandmother was more than wealthy but refused to eat with plates snacking with newspaper plates she made and grew a large crop of food in their front yard selling it to corner stores every year. She also would dig out clothing out of trash bins, wash and slice up the fabric to sew different clothes she also sold but didn't need to being fairly wealthy.

I used to live in the Inner Richmond and there was a can collecting couple who drove a brand new Honda CRV and lived in an amazing old brick building. I suspect some of the bottlepickers do it for lack of having any other hobbies.

In China, we call these people as "the one who pick garbage" or "king of the garbage", the latter one comes from a TV show in 80s. None of these terms are meant to be an insult, just plain description for what they do, but they are. In China, since the low developed well-being system, the elder ones do it since it is the only way they can earn some income to feed themselves. And yes, some of them have lots of deposits, ye, but that comes from saving from low quality life. The Chinese always chase for something pragmatic, which in China, which they can earn some money from. In this news, I do believe some of them may do it since a boring life. But if there is no economy benefit, I don't believe they will do this kind of bottle collecting thing. And ye, it is not because they love money, just a self-protection habit from their motherland.

In Ontario (maybe Canada, maybe many countries?) if you recycle a beer bottle, it gets melted down and re purposed. If you return a beer bottle to the beer store, it gets cleaned and refilled, which I expect is considerably more efficient.

Not dismissing the negative issues related to these people, there seems to be potential for them to be doing a considerable service for our communities.

In case you are not familiar with China, there are many such old ladies in China. Most of them in big cities are trying to dressed relatively clean and decent. There are some old ladies eat the remained food left on tables in student restaurants in universities.

Returning bottles for a deposit in Toronto is incredibly inconvenient.

Yet, the same phenomenon seems to exist in Berlin, where public drinking is tolerated if not encouraged and bottles can be returned to supermarkets.

In general, I wouldn't direct any condemnation upon individuals for scavenging... instead it's worth scrutinizing systems that encourage this waste.

"Keep America Beautiful" was founded by Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola...

Perhaps "June For" has something to do with 6/4?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of...

Don't put too much thought in that. "June" could simply be a chinese name "Jun". The lady knows few words of english, I doubt "June" is on that list.

I bet she meant "From June" actually.

"Scrounging through other people’s trash for useable stuff is common in many countries, a spontaneous form of recycling that long predates blue bins."

UK: Birmingham. No deposit on bottles here but some recycling companies will pay very small amounts for aluminium drink cans. We have a bit of a hierarchy going on

Scavengers: people going through wheelie bins and making a mess looking for cans &c. Often homeless.

Collectors: cans and metal objects. I often see a couple out with prams early in the morning collecting stuff. Not obviously homeless.

Rag and bone men: flat lorries going around collecting old fridges and washing machines and other kinds of stuff, usually metal

In Digbeth there is a day centre and residential block for older Chinese people. Always a hot meal at lunchtime, looks popular. Perhaps one of the Churches should start a day centre and organise voluntary activities?

Interesting thought- if the province finally raises bottle deposits to match inflation, very few people would leave bottles to be collected.

The fact that bottle ladies exist in Ontario demonstrates that the deposit value is too low to achieve its intended goal- everyone cleaning up their own empties.

The intended goal is that the empty bottles be returned, and that goal is being achieved. It doesn't matter whether it gets done by the people who used the bottles or by someone else.

A friend wrote an article about a NYC millennial who put herself through college collecting cans: http://bit.ly/2aj0IG7

Bylaw are nitpicking. i have personally helped fill my truck with cans Many many times!. you could pile them as high as you like tie it down and go to collect at a recycling facility that pays the most in my local area of the GTA and you will be only getting $60-80. I would say it would take one guy a month to collect. They should stop hiring more Bylaw to pick on people. You fire one bylaw officer you would save there 40-50k a year that would more then make up for the difference it makes. Bylaw in my opinion have a job and I think too many people complain rather then go outside and actually (shocker) talk to there neighbor and say hey this bothers me. It creates a war of someone called bylaw on you and it spreads so you call bylaw on all your neighbors it creates bad blood they hire more bylaw eventually there are so many of these lawn police that when everyone is compliant they need to justify there job.

Take my cans and metal and old electronics . My city charges me far to much to pickup trash. Go look at what you receive for your ever rising taxs it will possibly alarm you when you put a cost to it all.

I want less government I want government to fear me not the othere way around.

Why doesn't the city hire them to do what they're already doing?

It increases recycling rates and reduces litter providing a public service.

I have seen the same in Berlin, especially, on Friday evenings. Plenty of old or unemployed people in the city trains, UBahn. The deposits for a glass bottle is 10 euro cent and for PET is about 25 cent, IIRC.

so many people like her live in China

I am not sure there are 'so many' especially in big cities, but quite a few comparing to the developed world.

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