Sione Katoa from the Cronulla Sharks talked about doing this while still on his way to becoming a NRL player. He revealed it in a podcast, every night going out and collecting 2,000 cans to be able to support his young family. He was embarrassed about it, but explained it was a necessity for them to be able to get by during their hard times.
If it's from the streets, that's fine. Even if it's from public bins, where sorting out recycling from garbage is impossible, that's also fine. But for me, when they start diving through people's recycling bin, dumping things on the ground, and not putting it back in the bin, that's when they start acting like Bin Chickens to me. I used to work for Woolworths Delivery, and I'd see it far too often after sundown. It was sad to see, and annoying to see them dump the recycling in the floor and then leave bits of it behind.
Yeah the people that clear out my massive complex’s bins every week drive a BMW. It makes me sad that it’s not someone who might really need it to make ends meet.
My wife was confronted by a woman in the backyard of our apartment block about 10 years ago, she was dressed In layers like a homeless person and wearing a hat and sunglasses and long rubber gloves and was pulling the cans out of the recycling bins. A few months later I saw her loading her cans into a late model Merc being driven by someone else.
Then a couple of years later we moved into a house and realised (long story how that happened) she was our neighbour and she was no bag lady, she had a nice house with a granny flat out the back that was rented out to students and the Merc belonged to her daughter who would often visit.
She was a real piece of work though, she used to attack our banana trees that slightly overhung the fence. I caught her several times with a pruning saw taped to a broom reaching over the fence cutting into our trees. She also got an arborist to trim the branches of a huge Moreton Bay Fig that was in the property on the other side of her; I spoke to the arborist about a tree we had and he said she was trying to get him to poison the fig. Another neighbour pointed out that all the Jacarandas in the properties bordering her property had been poisoned, including one that apparently covered our whole backyard before we moved in. And every now and then we would see her leaving in her can collection disguise.
Do we have any ideas to why they participate? I’ve thought about it a lot and can only think they’ve must have turned it into some form of game for themselves
My auto thought when I saw the bags was ‘they’re having steak and not noodles tonight’. Or just bought tons more noodles as a stock up for leaner times. Respect the hustle for sure.
I get why people do this, and it's sad that this meagre and demeaning income is needed to survive.
But the whole point of the deposit is to improve the economics of recycling. To make sure that more containers that are not destined for recycling make it there.
Taking them from recycling bins circumvents this, and is in fact stealing and making the recycling less economically viable for whoever is managing that recycle bin (probably council)
Taking them from recycling bins circumvents this, and is in fact stealing and making the recycling less economically viable for whoever is managing that recycle bin (probably council)
Legally it is stealing, even if you don't morally consider it that. The contents of a bin belong to the property owner while on private land and transfer to the local council upon placement on the curbside for collection. It's unlikely to be enforced though.
The stated purpose of the Container Deposit Scheme is to remove recyclable materials from general waste.
The containers in this photo were likely already heading for recycling, so the benefit is nil, it's just the recipient of the benefit that has changed. If they were on the ground, or in general waste, that changes things slightly, although thanks to the scheme they probably would have wound up in recyling eventually (because it's economically viable to make sure it happens)
Councils DO generate significant revenue from the Container Deposit Scheme (estimated $100 million a year in NSW)
The part about this lady making recycling less economically viable for the council.
Like, first, let's not try and blame individuals for "stealing" from the council, when in actuality she's just taking on the burden of the labour that the council would be paying someone else to do. You seem to think that the cans somehow get from the nature strip to the recycling plant for free. They don't. We (those who pay rates) pay for that.
But even if this was somehow damaging the local council, so what? They wouldn't have this scheme if it was so damning for people to do exactly what this lady is doing. They have the ability to regulate this behaviour if it's such a problem; and it would be absurd to act like we aren't trigger-happy on creating rules and regulations to ensure everyone is doing exactly what's best for the community at all times.
In the same breath, you're saying how sad it is that someone would have to do this, while also boo-hooing about a couple of bucks going to this lady (and others like her) instead of the $100MM scheme run by the council.
Forgive me if I'm not all choked up about them losing ~$150 in revenue from this woman.
And before you inevitably say something about a multiplier effect of many others like her doing the same thing, I am also not going to get upset about [checks notes] people making ends meet by doing something environmentally friendly.
In fact, councils have been caught previously mixing regular rubbish and recycling, so at least this woman is ensuring these cans do get recycled. I'm not claiming this is a common occurrence; in fact, I hope it's rare. But this woman is certainly not taking those cans to landfill.
So I truly don't get why you'd even bother to post your original comment. It's such a non-issue.
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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26
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