The Observation Deck

this morning i put out garbage and recycling out to the front lawn, i am
not even in my door yet and a lady stops in front of my driveway gets out of her
car, moves her seat up, grabs my recycling bag and throws it in her back seat.
there where 8 beer cans, a lot of recyclable plastics and wine bottle.
i said to her, garbaging picking for recyclables? there is only 8 cans in there!
her reply - there cans.
she got in her car and left.
makes me wonder if she still will recycle everything else after she digs through for
the cans or just throw away.
driving to work in the mornings, i always see people picking through garbage -
one mans garbage is another persons treasure - but i can say i have never seen
anybody taking or digging through recyclables.

When I lived in Oregon, where you get 5 cents for bottles and cans, I always had people going through my recycling before trash day. homeless people, mostly, who would roll up with their noisy shopping carts at 4am . You could then take them to the grocery store to automated machines and get money back. I say, more power to them. If they need money, that's fine with me. Stuff is still getting recycled.

The funniest thing I ever saw was when I was in school in Cincinnati. There was a man who woulc come and pick through the apt building's trash next door and get bags and bags full of cans and bottles... which he would then put in the trunk of his very nice Cadillac sedan. I guess he was a frugal penny pinching guy that drove a nice car because of it.

They can get money for them. She's having a hard time and needs the money. You see a lot of people doing this in Cleveland. They get tickets for it I think.

I say, if someone's hard up enough to pick recycling, leave them alone.

Valerie, your story brought back memories of my summers in Oregon with my grandmother. I would walk the couple miles to the country store for ice cream. Along the way we would pick up bottles in the ditch, there always seemed to be enough for us to get an ice cream sandwich by the time we made it there.

sharon kinsella wrote:They can get money for them. She's having a hard time and needs the money. You see a lot of people doing this in Cleveland. They get tickets for it I think.

I say, if someone's hard up enough to pick recycling, leave them alone.

They certainly CAN get ticketed for it, but I doubt they do.

I'm fine with recycling however it happens, but, like the initial poster said, they might be just tossing out whatever they won't get paid for.

Seems like if you have enough money to have a car, you could probably be doing something better, but, who knows.

We used to use one of those can machines at the Giant Eagle back when it was Finast or Tops.

Heather Ramsey wrote:

sharon kinsella wrote:They can get money for them. She's having a hard time and needs the money. You see a lot of people doing this in Cleveland. They get tickets for it I think.

Heather

Made me think back to a couple photos I took while in New York of a garbage picke..er,
ahhh, errrrr, ahhhhhh select recycler, yeah that's it selective recycler.


A New York select recycler jumps out of his 2008 BMW X3 3.0si (a favorite vehicle
of select recyclers) at a red light and goes through the trash while waiting for the light.



.

We put a broken TV on our treelawn recently..hadn't been out there 5 minutes when our doorbell rang. It was a garbage picker asking for the remote!!!! I, myself am a garbage picker as anyone who has been to my home knows. A lot of my decor was another mans trash!

I'm a picker, she's a picker, he's a picker,
They're a picker, wouldn't you like to be a picker too.

Actually I have a friend who drives a big cadillac, mint condition. She bought it a couple of years back. She's been out of work for over a year. She picks things in Bay, Rocky River and Westlake. Mostly antiques. Sells them and pays her mortgage.

I've picked a lot of mid-century modern furniture and sold it right from my car. Even got a couple of valuable first editions that I made a some cash off of. I've also furnished many apartments for women coming out of the DV shelter.

Can't do this anymore, but I've always been mindful of what many careless people do when they pick and make a mess.