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My parents collect cans for a living

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Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#341
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in california the fee per bottle and can goes to state as taxes. You can get it back by turning in bottles and cans at a recycling center but the California state had made it impossible to return these cans for money. They have systematically shut down automated recycling redemption machines, caused long lines at in person centers and so on.

> They have systematically shut down automated recycling redemption machines I remember these machines outside of every grocery store, and now I don't see them anywhere anymore. It never occurred to me it was a purposeful effort, but then again I never gave it much thought. What caused the machines to disappear?

> What caused the machines to disappear?

Because people hate the homeless and want to punish them, for some reason. It's the same reason we can't have comfortable public benches.

Edit: Grammer

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have systematically shut down automated recycling redemption machines I remember these machines outside of every grocery store, and now I don't see them anywhere anymore. It never occurred to me it was a purposeful effort, but then again I never gave it much thought. What caused the machines to disappear?

> What caused the machines to disappear? Because people hate the homeless and want to punish them, for some reason. It's the same reason we can't have comfortable public benches. Edit: Grammer

> Because people hate for the homeless and want to punish them, for some reason

It's more, I think, that people hate seeing the homeless, and want to keep them away. They don't particularly care enough to hate them, they just don't want to have to encounter them.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hearing $1300 and $600 in terms of rental money and living in NYC I cant help but ask what neighborhoods is that rent available? Back in the late 90's friends who were moving out at 17-18 Yo were having a hard time finding local places for $500 in the boonies of Queens. I own some property and have a large 2nd floor 3BR that can fetch $2500 and its in a shitty neighborhood where someone was shot around the corner the…

Parent comment says LA, so perhaps its possible there?

It definitely was.

And LA was affordable up until 10 years ago, then things got rapidly worse.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#344
post #85

Not to be contrarian, but it seems like the shame around poverty is just as strong as it ever was. Or else why are all these stories and anecdotes on the form "My parents collected cans but I made a career and I don't collect cans" or "I used to collect cans but then I got some kind of break through my hard work and now I don't collect cans anymore". It's a lot like depression: "I used to be depressed but then I work…

Because this is pornography meant to reassure the reading audience that quality people will always find their level in the end.

That interpretation isn't justified. The author makes it clear that she is still financially dependent on her parents, who still collect cans for a living.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My experiences in Monterey (2015) and San Diego (2019) were negative. It is good to hear that the particular issue either is not universal or has improved with time.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These areas are private property: the ends of people’s driveways. The city pays for trash and recycling collection from these areas. The scavengers steal all of the profitable items (mostly metal) from people’s recycling, making the recycling program even more unprofitable than it already is.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#347
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…

A number of fair questions, I can only answer from personal experience. My dad being a bus driver+conference phone tech and my mom an office admin we qualified for lunch and other aids as long as I was in school. Many things were subsidized, but there were also things that weren't. It was hard to know when unless you always asked. For smaller items sometimes it wasn't worth the embarrassment of always walking up to y…

It is always embarrassing, even for a young child, to be asking for what he feels to be handouts. But, in your personal experience, was there enough assistance, and did it make a meaningful difference at the right time in your life? Was being better-informed about assistance the biggest challenge by far?

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#349

My family used to do this all the time when we were kids. We'd go along the ditches on the side of the road and make a family outing of it on weekends. At the beach my brother and I would drag big plastic garbage bags around and collect as much as we could from people who were happy to help some kids out and also happy to be rid of the bottles and cans. You could make some decent coin at it, but that was also in the…

[deleted]

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#350
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Well they ought to have put the public charge laws on there too, no doubt.
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