Glass, Metal, Plastic: The Story of New York's Canners 

I am so grateful for Pierre, Chicago and the many canners of New York City and around the world. Thank you Story of Stuff for sharing their story. I am deeply touched by this message. Love, Robin

Love it! You had me with 'Can you make a living by recycling?' I want to make a living by recycling, I've been picking up trash my whole life. And I feel the same way the Pierre does about this work. I want to clean up. I'm looking to start my second career moving into retirement and I want it to be around recycling.

I agree with comment about how poorly treated because people do not respect this type of labor not matter how good it is to our living conditions and environment.

I myself do cans I wish milk and juice containers had a deposit

Great video - gave me a new perspective on the people who do this type of work. They are making the city a more beautiful place and supporting themselves at the same time. Win/win

Great documentary. We're so quick to judge, scapegoat and criticise those that we deem beneath us. Canners, just like all of us, are doing what they do to survive. And thie helps reframe the situation. If plastic pollution is one of the biggest disasters of our time, then these guys truly are saving our planet!

Never look down on a canner love you guys I'm a canner in Australia

I wish we had this sort of deposit scheme in the UK. It has clearly had an impact in NY in reducing waste, reducing litter and in providing employment. These canners are entitled to take pride in what they are doing.

Well done; thumbs up!

I do this in Queensland, Australia and we get 10 cents per drink container and I’m saving up for a mining course and some tattoos as well

"somebody love me they thought about me they thought about somebody"

unsavoury as it appears, there's a double positive to this, informal employment and ecologically.

When I lived in Quebec City, I saw so many OLD people going through the trash at the bus terminal. - men and women in their 70s and 80s. It made me very sad to think that THIS was the way they had to supplement their government benefits. I am glad that people CAN make money from this initiative, but at the same time, I am sad that people work and pay tax their whole lives, and then have to go through the trash to scrape together some money to buy bread. Recycling/ canning shouldn't be the only option for the vulnerable or those living on the breadline. It should be the responsibility of society as a whole to cut down on the trash our lifestyles create. Capitalism has failed the environment and people in such a big way - we need a new political system that respects LIFE over money.

I wish I could meet these two, Pierre and Chicago. Really inspiring, they could be motivational speakers.

Can't wait until it goes to 10cents

Cleaning up should be motivated as well as "littering" held socially irresponsible.

Thank you for sharing this story. So inspiring!

Your documentaries are always so well produced and interesting to watch!

Must respect to these people 🤞🏽✊🏽

Pierre your amazing !!

In the San Francisco bay area we lost our recycling collection locations due to the business going bankrupt!! We only have a few about 15-25 miles away!! THIS is ILLEGAL to the recycling law in CA!! :(

I don't understand why they don't compress the cans. In Argentina say twenty years ago there were some intresting machines on some main streets which compressed the can to the size of a disk with the height of the the two ends. As it was funny how the can finished after the compressing, people were interested in puting their can and press it instead of throwing it in the trash. Unfortunatelly one of the many economic crisis in my country made the cans dissapear and only plastic bottles were used for many years. There are many capaigns to separate trash to recycle the material. I say is much better not to mix them first which keeps them clean and easier to process.

Agree 100% that deposits should be on all kinds of bottles and cans - juice, teas, designer drinks and liquor. I HATE seeing broken glass bottles on the street - hazardous to pedestrians, vehicles, pets and a dangerous mess.

The lady at5:29 could have handed him the bag of bottles, she saw him coming

The unstated tragedy is that people are too damn lazy to recycle - so they put can in the trash or sidewalk. I live way out in the country and pick several dollars worth of cans and bottles (at 5 cents each) every week just walking around my neighborhood with my neighbor. We do it for the greater good, the money is just a reward for our community service. Yesterday we picked $2.00 in one 1/4 mile stretch! People throw them out of their vehicles as they drive!

BC Canada has deposit on juice and liquor bottles but nothing has deposit in Manitoba Canada, not even soda cans!!!! Craziness.

In Massachusetts we have again (2024) failed to update our 1982 five cents per container Bottle Bill. Deposit should be one dollar per container, and adjusted annually for inflation. We should of course add sports drinks, water bottles, nips, and liquor bottles.

This is so great. ♻️💯👍🏿

Nice. Liked it. Just donated. (Really.) :)

Since when was it embarrassing to clean up the planet? Society is so backwards, we praise the ones who are in white collared jobs because it’s “respectable” when majority of the time those jobs are owned by billionaires who purposely underpay workers so they can thrive in a society like today. I don’t see anything admirable in that. Yet the people who do work like this, that actually solve an ongoing problem in the world, are looked down upon? Make that make sense. To me, this is an admirable thing to do and they rightfully should be paid more to do it!

Did i see him pass on the free bicycles though??? Those are crucial

I wish they had the redeemable deposits in my city (Paris, France). It's just insane that they do not.

I work for a education center and on my spare time i collect cans my family nos but im never shy collecting i do street pick up

Bottle glass should be 10cent not 5cent ( signed Canner President Godzilla ) .

The homeless are entitled to making money just like everyone else. Being a canner is their "job" for that extra money for a cup of coffee or a meal

12 rounds of chemotherapy?? How did he pay for that by doing canning?

There is nothing embarrassing about working.

Something is FISHY here. I've seen 3 different 'can collector' stories on RU-vid, each made 3 years apart, and Pierre is the one interviewed. What is he, paid by the city to be the spokesperson or something? Millions of faceless can collectors, why just Pierre?

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I mean, props to them for cleaning up and utilizing the systems in place designed for exactly that purpose. But digging through trash and especially recycling bins; that's stealing.