- 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't recyclable in the blue bin.
This way of recycling is super convenient 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 too contaminated to be recycled.
At the same time,
recycling continues to get more expensive
and hundreds of cities have had to shut down their programs.
So I want to know...
To find out I've come to a nonprofit local recycling program
that's run in Brooklyn, New York for over 10 years.
Sure We Can paid out $650,000
to individuals in their community last year
and rescued millions of bottles from landfill.
On this episode presented by Brita,
I'm excited to see if this local nonprofit
holds the key to rethinking our recycling system.
I'm Lucy Biggers
and this is One Small Step.
(gentle music)
Anna De Luco and Eugene Gadsden co-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 is having some place every day
to turn in the cans.
- Here's how it works.
mandates a 5 cent deposit on every aluminum can,
plastic water bottle, and glass 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, you have responsibility.
So you at least pay the deposit
and still you can get it back.
- During the 1970s and 80s,
there was an explosion of single use cans and bottles
that made traditional return and 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 for individuals to pick up litter
and to turn cans in for recycling.
And it worked.
The New York state Department of Conservation
found that in the first year of implementation,
the bill helped remove 3.8 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 deposits are literally engraved
on the top of every can.
Ryan Castalia is the communications and project manager
at Sure We Can.
Bottle bills right now are only in 10 states,
so who has been fighting them
so that they're not in every state?
- The manufacturers are opposed to bottle bills in general,
often because raising the deposit, for example,
raises the price for the customer 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 have here in New York city,
the company that operates it has an exclusive contract
to process all of the residential recycling material
in the city.
So their view is that removal of recyclable material,
especially valuable material like aluminum and PET plastic,
removal of that from the waste stream,
diminishes the volume that they're able to resell
on the open recyclable market.
We obviously have our opinions about those views.
The main aspect of which is that in cases
like the New York state's bottle bill,
the canners here are required to work on foot.
So the amount that the canners could possibly reduce,
even if they were all to work 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 for PET plastic water bottles
without a deposit is about 17%.
With a deposit that increases to 63%.
For aluminum recycling rates increase from 46% to 83%.
And for glass bottles rates increased from 12% to 72%.
Better sorted recyclables also 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 nine and a half cents per pound,
versus PET plastic bottles
recycled through a deposit program like Sure We Can,
will earn about 16 and a half cents per pound.
At a time when recyclers are facing budget cuts,
it makes sense that cleaner,
better sorted recyclables like these
could help them earn back some of their money.
- We're sorting by hand.
It's like a very human, individual based operation,
which means that more time goes 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 and subject to all sorts
of challenging socioeconomic forces.
- According to Sure We Can, about 100 of the regular canners
rely on redeeming cans as their main form of income.
The canners are 40% Hispanic,
30% Asian, and 25% African American.
And the majority are between 60 and 80 years old.
Eugene Gadsden now helps run the nonprofit,
but says his 30 years of canning 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 than just a redemption site.
The nonprofit also has a community garden, compost program,
repair shop and chickens,
and is a gathering center for the canning community.
- In that sense, this is the 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 concerning about many other issues
outside of the 5 cents financial issue.
- Right now, the future of Sure We Can is in question.
That's because the owner of this lot,
which has been their home for over a decade,
is trying to sell.
Sure We Can's leadership is trying 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 your recycling or whatever,
can just notice to see whether there'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 give the canner that comes by
a bonus in terms of cans,
but it's also just going to 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 recycling system more reliable,
but also supporting so many individuals in its community.
I think that this type of recycling shows a lot of promise
and it would be cool to expand the deposit system
to include more types of materials.
New York recently considered expanding the deposits
to juice boxes, liquor, and wine bottles.
But that decision did not go through.
That's all for this episode.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you liked this,
please share it and we'll see you next time.
So I'm gathering up all the cans that have a price on them.
The five cent price,
and I ran into a canner on the street,
so I'm going to bring him our cans.
And I feel like I'm doing a really nice thing,
because he'll be able to trade them 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.