Local Recycling Solution Is Creating Jobs One Small Step
- Every time I bring my recyclables down to the disposal area in my building, And this isn't even a bad day. Soft plastics mixed in with recycling. Straws. More soft plastic that isn'trecyclable in the blue bin. This way of recycling is superconvenient for the consumer and efficient for pickup, but it has a major downside. And that's because all of these materials are mixed together, there's higher rates of contamination. It's estimated that about 25% of recycling gets sent to the dump because it's toocontaminated to be recycled. At the same time, recycling continues to get more expensive and hundreds of cities have hadto shut down their programs.
So I want to know... To find out I've come to anonprofit local recycling program that's run in Brooklyn,New York for over 10 years. Sure We Can paid out $650,000 to individuals in theircommunity last year and rescued millions ofbottles from landfill.
On this episode presented by Brita, I'm excited to see if this local nonprofit holds the key to rethinkingour recycling system. I'm Lucy Biggers and this is One Small Step. (gentle music) Anna De Luco and Eugene Gadsdenco-founded the nonprofit, Sure We Can, over 10 years ago. Why is a place like Sure We Can so important for the community of canners? - Because there's a bunch of places to get cans, but the hardest thing ishaving some place every day to turn in the cans. - Here's how it works. mandates a 5 cent depositon every aluminum can, plastic water bottle, andglass bottle that you buy. At the Sure We Can warehouse, individuals, also known as canners, return huge quantities of cans and get that 5 cent deposit back in cash. -
This is an ideal system. For example, I don't buy Coke or Pepsi, so why should I be paying for my taxes for the recycling of those bottles? But if you buy it, youhave responsibility. So you at least pay the deposit and still you can get it back. - During the 1970s and 80s, there was an explosion ofsingle use cans and bottles that made traditional returnand refill bottle programs unable to keep up with demand. Supporters of bottle deposit bills argued that a five or 10 cent deposit on a can, would create an incentive forindividuals to pick up litter and to turn cans in for recycling. And it worked. The New York stateDepartment of Conservation found that in the firstyear of implementation, the bill helped remove3.8 billion containers from the New York waste stream.
Today only nine other states have passed bottle deposit bills. Here's how you can tell if you live in a state with a bottle bill. States with depositsare literally engraved on the top of every can. Ryan Castalia is thecommunications and project manager at Sure We Can. Bottle bills right noware only in 10 states, so who has been fighting them so that they're not in every state? -
The manufacturers are opposedto bottle bills in general, often because raisingthe deposit, for example, raises the price for thecustomer on the product. So they're concerned about drops in sales related to that raise in cost. Also, municipal recycling programs, like the one we havehere in New York city, the company that operatesit has an exclusive contract to process all of theresidential recycling material in the city. So their view is that removalof recyclable material, especially valuable materiallike aluminum and PET plastic, removal of that from the waste stream, diminishes the volume thatthey're able to resell on the open recyclable market. We obviously have ouropinions about those views.
The main aspect of which is that in cases like the New York state's bottle bill, the canners here arerequired to work on foot. So the amount that thecanners could possibly reduce, even if they were all towork all day every day, which many of them do, is just completely negligible.
According to research by the Container Recycling Institute, recycling rates are significantly higher in states with bottle deposit bills. The recycling rate forPET plastic water bottles without a deposit is about 17%. With a deposit that increases to 63%. For aluminum recycling ratesincrease from 46% to 83%. And for glass bottles ratesincreased from 12% to 72%. Better sorted recyclablesalso earn higher prices. A bale of PET plastic bottles, recycled from curbside recycling, like I showed at the top of the video, will sell for about nineand a half cents per pound, versus PET plastic bottles recycled through a depositprogram like Sure We Can, will earn about 16 anda half cents per pound. At a time when recyclersare facing budget cuts, it makes sense that cleaner, better sorted recyclables like these could help them earnback some of their money. -
We're sorting by hand. It's like a very human,individual based operation, which means that more timegoes into it, more effort. But then by the same token, we've been able to take on the sort of community based efforts and the advocacy work for a community that's largely stigmatized and made vulnerable andsubject to all sorts of challenging socioeconomic forces. -
According to Sure We Can,about 100 of the regular canners rely on redeeming cans astheir main form of income. The canners are 40% Hispanic, 30% Asian, and 25% African American. And the majority arebetween 60 and 80 years old. Eugene Gadsden nowhelps run the nonprofit, but says his 30 years ofcanning gave him independence. I'm my own boss. At least I didn't have to work for nobody. And I could have worked whatever time, day, night, 1 hour, no hours. (giggling) That was the best part. - Sure We Can is more thanjust a redemption site. The nonprofit also has acommunity garden, compost program, repair shop and chickens, and is a gathering centerfor the canning community. - In that sense, this isthe spirit of Sure We Can. We are a group of canners. We are a community of people.
So yeah, we work, but we share life and we celebrate and we caring and concerningabout many other issues outside of the 5 cents financial issue. - Right now, the future ofSure We Can is in question. That's because the owner of this lot, which has been theirhome for over a decade, is trying to sell. Sure We Can's leadership istrying to raise the money so that they can buy this lot outright and stay in their home. What's one small step that people can take to support your work? - When you're drinking your soda or going through yourrecycling or whatever, can just notice to see whetherthere's a deposit on it, which in New York, it's very clear.
It says New York and 5 cents,and put those in a clear bag and set it aside next to your recycling, next to your landfill waste. That not only is gonna givethe canner that comes by a bonus in terms of cans, but it's also just goingto communicate to them that they're welcome in the community, that you support their work, that you know that they're there and that they have work to be done. -
It's cool to see how Sure We Can is making our local recyclingsystem more reliable, but also supporting so manyindividuals in its community. I think that this type ofrecycling shows a lot of promise and it would be cool toexpand the deposit system to include more types of materials. New York recently consideredexpanding the deposits to juice boxes, liquor, and wine bottles.
And I feel like I'm doinga really nice thing, because he'll be able to tradethem in directly for money. He's here. Thank you so much. Bye. He was waiting. I told him, I was like, wait here, I'm gonna get my cans. And I like really couldn't tell if he knew what I was saying, but then he was waiting. That was so pure
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