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Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

> Eric Dunn of Community Recyclers does not hesitate when we ask him why the recycling centers have closed: “Getting rid of street people by getting rid of recycling centers is the bottom line. It’s basically class warfare concerns.”

We need to start showing real compassion for each other. Removing one of the few legit ways the poor can generate money is not the right thing to do. They need help. Recycling helps the environment AND the poor! How many things are there in the world like that? Closing them down because the bike-riding, starbucks-sipping, smartphone-talking, organic-eating fancy & polished crowd feel uncomfortable around the poor is selfish IMHO. One day, we won't be able to sweep the unpleasant truths of our society underneath the rug anymore. What then? Oh, actually, I know. They'll make it illegal to be poor, so they'll all be in jail. Thus solving the problem _ONCE AND FOR ALL_.

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This is shortsighted. Why not just give them money? We already spend money on waste management to collect the stuff.

But no, we can't, then it'd be a handout. And we, even community-minded people like Eric Dunn, can't stomach the thought of just giving people money. So we make them do pointless make-work, like collecting bottles.

The middle class people you illogically rage against are the ones funding the poor indirectly (and convolutedly) through their waste. Why not cut out the misery and give them the money directly? IMO it's less respectful, more demeaning, to insist a street person dig through trash to collect a bunch of cans before we give them their daily bread.

Collecting bottles is hardly pointless. Recycling is a positive, both for "recycle" and "clean up bottle trash" and clearly some people are not motivated enough by the current CRV taxes. You could think of it as specialization.

No one cares if they collect litter. People don't want hobos rummaging through their garbage. Stealing all of the bottles out of recycling bins is also not accomplishing anything.

>People don't want hobos rummaging through their garbage

I have no objection to them doing so at my house in SF. They few I've spoken to about it seemed very nice.

>Stealing all of the bottles out of recycling bins...

Are you sure it's stealing? AFAIK, it's only stealing if the bin is on/at the curb. I believe it's otherwise legal.

>...out of recycling bins is also not accomplishing anything.

The question is: is the system as a whole accomplishing anything? The removal of cans from residential bins is the unintended consequence of a wider rule, which has (according to the article) reduced litter levels in CA considerably. All systems have unintended consequences. What alternative system do you propose that reduces litter and increases recycling rates? What side effects does it have?

Finally (I'm going out on a limb here): I don't think it's our place to judge. What I see when I look out the window is a person who has the determination and energy to push a heavy cart up a hill on a cold night, and yet a person who has -- despite those traits, which society values -- found themselves in an unenviable life position right now. When I see that paradox my reaction is to allow them their wish. Not because I do or don't approve of the system, but because I approve or hard work, and applying yourself, and because the very existence of their paradox assures me that I don't know enough to do anything other than make sure I'm not getting in their way.

Even if it's not stealing (and I don't see any reason to actually call it that), it's nonetheless pretty close to pointless to move remove bottles and cans from recycling bins that will be picked up by a truck anyway into a shopping cart and drag them across town. It may be a slightly negative side-effect of an on-balance worthwhile policy, but it's odd to consider it positive when there are better ways to help people.

> nonetheless pretty close to pointless to move remove bottles and cans from recycling bins that will be picked up by a truck anyway

Not pointless: less curbside pickup volume per truck means you can run with less residential-serving trucks (less time trundling back and forth to a big recycling distribution center).

It's a kind of ingenious way to decrease spending on municipal recycling collection, levying it on the consumers of the products apt for recycling directly. I actually wish the deposit were a little bit larger. What they do is enormously backbreaking and demoralizing work.

The trucks will just be going to the new distribution center instead of the old one. Also, the article points out that this doesn't decrease spending since the city would otherwise make the money from the stolen cans.

When you put refuse to the curb, it's generally regarded as discarded. That word -- stolen -- doesn't mean what you think it means.

If the collection is partly subsidized by the presence of recyclables in that refuse, does that change things? I don't know enough about trash collection to know to what degree that's the case (I would expect it to vary by municipality).

Pretty close to pointless - the trucks still need to run and the marginal cost of a truck carrying an additional can is almost certainly way the hell less than 5 cents. Meanwhile, we're paying these people way less than minimum wage. It still doesn't seem like that part of it makes any sense.

Do you have a citation for your claim against Eric Dunn?

Also, how is it demeaning to pay someone for an honest day's work?

If it's work worth doing, shouldn't they be offered a job instead of having to fight rats, use old shopping cars and get hassled by the cops?

Fighting rats is part of the job. You can't just legislate rays away.

Entrepreneurs aren't offered jobs, they create jobs.

Of course hassling from cops is trouble.

You can't legislate rats away, but with appropriate tools you mostly can legislate the fight part away.

Do "we" not give them money already? Do homeless people, or people in whatever situation these "street people" are in, not get money from the state or city? This is a serious question.

And we, even community-minded people like Eric Dunn, can't stomach the thought of just giving people money.

Says who? Isn't Switzerland talking about doing just this, and doesn't Switzerland inarguably have a higher standard of living than the US?

I agree completely.

We should continue to employ hobos for less than minimum wage to move bottles out of recycling bins into other recycling bins via stolen shopping carts at 3am.

Also fuck yuppies (and bicycles).

I got shouted down in a reddit thread for suggesting that getting cops to arrest people that were scavenging for recyclables was not the best use of their time and our tax dollars.

On the other hand, do you want anybody who is interested to be able to dress up like a hobo and sift through your trash with impunity any time they feel like? Of course the actual hobos aren't interested in your old credit cards and such, but allowing that behavior is not without risks.

Indeed, the city should put people on payroll with oversight.

Why aren't you shredding anything you put in the trash?

Because secret documents are the easy targets. I can't shred everything that goes into the bin, and secret documents aren't the only ones that give away information.

do you want anybody who is interested to be able to dress up like a hobo and sift through your trash with impunity any time they feel like?

As far as I know, that is perfectly legal throughout the USA. Certainly there is no warrant required for the police to do exactly that.

I've actually got a big problem with the police doing that without any judicial supervision, but if it is OK for them to do it carte blanche, then in a just society it must be OK for anyone else to do it too.

You arent even required to dress like a hobo for it to be legal! http://freegan.info/what-is-a-freegan/freegan-practices/urba...

Huh. I always thought it was illegal, much the same way opening someone's mail is illegal. I could be wrong though.

The difference is that when you throw something away, you're indicating you don't want it any longer. Mail is something that is very explicitly for you only. Does that make sense?

You seem to be suggesting recycling as a jobs program. That makes me nervous. I would rather have a recycling program that is as efficient as possible and a separate jobs program that is as efficient as possible. This hybrid seems to serve neither well.

It is a public-private partnership, not so different in structure from the military-industrial complex. Weild your disapproval consistently.

What is a jobs program if not paying people to do useful work?

While I don't agree with the parent to your post, I will say that a more 'efficient' jobs program would be one that teaches them useful skills in the job market (e.g. a skilled trade like welding). An example would be the Hoover Dam, which was a jobs program under FDR's New Deal (thought maybe not an excellent example as many of the jobs were high-risk).

Digging through dumpsters and being ignored... sounds like we're training a bunch of PI's?

Weild your disapproval consistently

You have no idea what my opinion on the military-industrial complex is

They'll never make it illegal to be poor without a major overhaul of our financial system. The economy absolutely relies on people taking on more debt than they can handle, look what happened the last time that issue was addressed. Yes, I'm equating poor with "unmanageable debt burden".

The way you described the anti-poor contingent is bigoted and inaccurate. Please think and edit.

> Removing one of the few legit ways the poor can generate money is not the right thing to do.

In terms of legitimacy, recycling bottles is about equivalent to digging holes and filling them in; the money comes from a tax dedicated to the purpose, not from people who want the bottles.

Compare:

- The government pays people $2 / hour to dig holes and then fill them in, using discretionary funds.

- The government pays people $2 / hour to "do whatever you were going to do anyway", using discretionary funds.

- The government pays people $2 / hour to move glass bottles from recycling bins to recycling centers, using dedicated funds.

Are the dedicated funds really a source of legitimacy? Where's it coming from?

dangerous waters.... so you are suggesting strolling about and collecting cans from trash as a viable way to live?

If the market isn't giving an answer to the recycling problem, these people are, and are making money for it.

This sounds like a job like any other to me.

I won't say it is a viable way to live, but it can be a rather big boost when there is no other work from my experience as a kid.

No, but lacking an alternative it's the best we've got. I'm all for not having people rooting through trash to barely eke out a living, but until these people have another choice...

The article states that the reason given was that the city now offers curb-side recycling. They haven't stopped recycling.

Edited to add rant: You want to help the poor? Get out of that fucking chair and go help them. No one gives a shit about your self-righteous rants about rich people that reek of naivety. And don't even pretend to preach to me about being poor, I grew up dirt fucking poor. Now down vote that.

FTA:

>> But curbside recycling is sufficient only for those rich enough not to care about the redemption value of cans. As Joe Rice of the Market Street center put it, “Curbside doesn’t put money in grandmothers’ pockets.” And as many beverages are consumed outside the home, recycling centers are still crucial to San Francisco’s stated goal of zero waste by 2020.

In my above average suburban community with no deposit fees on aluminum cans, curbside recycling is a cash cow for the city. The revenue from the recyclables pays for the garbage collection resulting in a more or less zero cost to gather both. They hope to turn a profit once they start collecting commercial recycling.

I can only imagine how profitable it is in places with a can deposit.

I grew up poor as well. Thankfully, my mother's work paid off by the time I was a teenager and we moved up to middle-class.

I'm sure you're harboring legitimate resentment, but your rant against armchair philanthropists seems equally self-righteous, as though poverty is a badge of honor. I don't say that to be mean or white-knight you, it's just how it comes across. It makes it worse that you challenge people to down vote you.

I don't give a shit anymore. This place is a goddam joke most of the time. Bunch of white-bread kids thinking they know shit from shinola.

White-bread? Please, that's not nearly organic, biological and ecological enough. I only eat $16 bread made in some unspecified third world country and distributed by a local multinational.

White-bread? No way man, whole grain wheat. Each grain was produced on its own exclusive acre field.

yeah, man. fuck those snooty bike riding assholes.

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