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My parents collect cans for a living

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Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#321

Post by necovek »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #274
Aissen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw that at your neighboor's in Copenhagen, and after the first outrage of paying +50cts per drink, I understood that I was seeing a glimpse the future… If littering is equivalent to throwing money, you simply won't do it. Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel about that though…

I am not a rich man but the homeless guy needs the 50 cents more than I do. And I rather have homeless people collect cans than making street music to be honest...

While I don't see a connection between homeless people and street musicians, I am intrigued by your complaint of the street musicians?

My kids are fascinated by them, and as long as they are not taking up too much space to make it impossible to pass through the street (and if they do, I'll happily pass through their "stage"), I am quite happy to have the streets livened up by some music too. Not all of it is good or to my taste, but it certainly beats empty streets, especially so during cold winter months.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#322

Post by lukas099 »

kstenerud wrote: post #245
bigbillheck wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is violence your response to rudeness?

It has been, and it has served me well. You'd be surprised at how quickly abusive people shut up after a smack.

Do you live in a jurisdiction where you don't have to worry about assault charges?

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#323

Post by rmk »

selimthegrim wrote: post #306
rootsudo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's valid. Refugees are refugees and are granted legal status. Illegitimate Spanish speaking aliens encourage human trafficking through unsafe conditions, Turbo, Colombia, Darien Gap, Cayotes in general and sponser cartels, - etc, worker extortion, unsafe work places (e.g. company hires illegal aliens, pays under minimum wage, no safety regards and if there's any talk out of line - it's just a call to ICE/DHS and th…

I wasn’t aware on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty it said “Give me your wealthy, fur-clad masses yearning to make a buck”

The Statue of Liberty does not dictate complex public policy. America provides more (no strings-attached) aid to poor countries than any other country, and it also takes in more immigrants than perhaps the rest of the world combined (almost every country in the world has a net positive emigration rate to the USA).

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#324

Post by umvi »

relaxing wrote: post #242
thaumasiotes wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to give the collectors a living wage. Why would this be a goal?

1. Cans need to be collected 2. Everyone needs a living wage Hope this helps.

> 2. Everyone needs a living wage

I think everyone would agree with this, but phrased slightly differently I don't think everyone would agree:

"Every method of making money must be capable of generating a living wage for the person using that method"

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#325

Post by lillecarl »

rndgermandude wrote: post #204
lillecarl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite disappointed you didn't press charges to he honest, (s)he must've understood perfectly what (s)he was doing and the consequences, yet he still did it. And you're likely not the only person abused like that. Yes there are loads of nice appreciative collectors and they are doing us a service, it's just sad when the predators come and ruin it.

My hope was that involving the cops was scary enough (they took down the details of that person, and issued a formal order to vacate), and that the immediate monetary "punishment" in form of those 20 bucks (which is a lot of bottles) helped too. I felt it was a reasonable severe response to what happened. Causing that guy a lot of legal trouble, aside from clogging up the legal system with not even 20 bucks worth of…

Sounds like a smaller city? My assumption is based on recognition of the recycler, that wouldn't happen around here.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#326

Post by mrexroad »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #219
fennecfoxen wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in California there are fewer dropoffs in stores but the bottles tend to come from residential recycling bins, which were raided while they were waiting for a truck to pick them up.

In my experience, that's common, but so is people jumping your fence to raid your cans before you've put them out. And, should you ever try to recoup the 'deposit' by going to the recycling center, you'll spend 1+ hour in line being hounded by homeless people to give them your cans. All of it creates way more incentive to just throw your cans in the trash so you don't have to deal with any of that.

Bay Area here. My experience at recycling centers has always been quick and painless. Took over 60 lbs of cans and a bunch of scrap copper the other week. No line, no hounding.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#327

Post by valarauko »

hunterb123 wrote: post #47
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI a great many immigrants were rich when they immigrated. A lot of rich people come to America because America offers so much opportunity to people who are already wealthy. Immigrants from overseas are especially likely to be wealthy. Indian-Americans are the wealthiest ethnic demographic in America simply because migrating from India pretty much requires being very wealthy to begin with.

Nothing I said indicated the immigrants were rich or poor, the majority are poor though. My point was if there's a nicer system than the US, immigrants will be flocking there too. Luckily we have numbers on the rates of which people immigrate to which countries, and the average wages of citizens of those countries. > Indian-Americans are the richest ethnic minority in America because migrating from India pretty much…

> Plenty of lower class Indian immigrants pool their money for taxi medallions, convenient stores, hotels, trucks, etc. to get a business going.

Are there many "lower class Indian immigrants" who arrived in the past 30 years? The immigration system since the 90s has raised the barrier for Indians so high that the idea of 'lower class Indian immigrants' seems difficult to parse. I disagree with the assertion that Indians have to be very wealthy to immigrate - highly educated/qualified, yes. The era when an Indian taxi driver could immigrate ended many decades ago.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#328

Post by rmk »

cgio wrote: post #44
rmk wrote: post #26

I am curious: if you collect cans for a living, do you qualify for government assistance? Is it possible that Jessica Yauri receives aid earmarked for children so they can get proper nutrition, via her parents? She does not mention if she qualifies for lunch assistance. Also, I am assuming that she goes to a public school where she doesn't have to pay to attend. It is also not clear if she receives further aid in sup…

I am a little bit annoyed with the direction of your argument. To counter argue, it is obvious in this case that the value that you get from this “underclass” is more that the cheap labour, it’s also an educated young person with passion and depth of experiences that you would struggle to get from “people already here” alone. What has been coming out “in the wash” for the duration of your history, I assume you commen…

In what specific way is an imported poor person better than a local poor person? There are plenty of generationally poor people in America already, so how does America benefit vs. by helping the poor that are already here to a higher extent. After all, citizenship or permanent residency means that you have a higher claim on your fellow-citizens' taxes that are set aside for the purpose of human development.

Second, the "educated young person" was educated courtesy of the United States, not her country of origin. I agree with you somewhat that immigrants have a higher drive to succeed. But, how do poorer uneducated, possibly illegal immigrants fare in this regard vs. self-supporting well-educated immigrants who are better able to integrate easily into the mainstream?

I believe immigration is essential to keep growth going, and to keep various social support systems such as Medicare and Social Security solvent in the current state. However, there is the subtle question of whether that is accomplished by having control and a say over what type of immigration it is that we want, or by relinquishing any semblance of control in the matter. Any democratic society with a right to self-determination should be able to have a frank discussion and the ability to decide for themselves how they proceed on this.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#329

Post by WoodenChair »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #4

I have not thought about collecting cans in a very long time. Decades ago you could make a decent bit of cash collecting aluminum cans. It was a common past time for poor people and undoubtedly contributed to the very high recycle rate for aluminum since it was a source of income for many people. This was widely known, so people would often go out of their way to make their aluminum trash easily available to be colle…

> It was a common past time for poor people and undoubtedly contributed to the very high recycle rate for aluminum since it was a source of income for many people.

It was not just a past time amongst people of lower economic means. My dad was a computer science professor and when I was a little kid we would go on long walks around our rural town collecting cans and bottles littered along the road and in wooded areas. He seemed kind of into the money we would get back from the supermarket, but I doubt he really cared about it that much. Maybe he was trying to teach me the value of the dollar/work. Maybe he was into the peaceful adventure of it. Or maybe he cared a tiny bit about the environment. It was probably a bit of all of that. Whatever it was, I remember that there were other people who did it too of all social classes that you would see at the supermarket recycling center. I'm not sure why people stopped. Maybe as others have pointed out, municipal recycling trucks have made people less enthusiastic about it.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#330

Post by throwaway0a5e »

chongli wrote: post #177
johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #32

As they should. About a decade ago in Toronto, Ontario, Canada we actually made collecting cans out of recycling bins illegal. The city claimed that these "scavengers" were taking their rightful profits. I shit you not. [0] [0] https://toronto.citynews.ca/2008/08/07/city-to-crack-down-on...

They are stealing. They’re trespassing on people’s property to take resources that don’t belong to them and selling them at a profit, depriving the city’s recycling program of revenue. And the people I see doing this are probably not homeless people since they are picking up all the metal in a fancy pickup truck. Not only are they collecting cans but also old metal furniture and appliances. This is a business they ru…

There is a ton of case law in pretty much every common law jurisdiction establishing that stuff that is visibly trash-like and abandoned in a public area is fair game.

If the job is redundant because volunteers are doing it than maybe the city should stop paying for it.

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