Palacio Edelberto, a Cuban immigrant, collects cans for several hours a day. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)
Palacio Edelberto barrels down a residential block along 123rd Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues, but stops his shopping cart, overflowing with cans, bottles, bags, smaller push carts and even coat hangers, to politely let two children and an older woman pass by.
“Buenas dias,” he says “Como estas?”
“Bien,” the woman replies, smiling, while maneuvering the children around a bulging plastic bag hanging from the edge of Edelberto’s shopping cart.
“See, not everybody speaks like that,” Edelberto says in his thick Cuban accent, watching them walk away. “You go to other countries — go to France, Germany, Cuba — and no matter where you come from, people say hello. Not here. People pass you like you’re garbage.”
But passers-by can’t help noticing his own garbage: mounds of empty Coke and Pepsi cans, Heineken bottles and orange juice jugs. Edelberto is one of hundreds of can collectors as local residents dub them: men and women, some homeless and others just strapped for cash, who rummage through the tons of garbage on city streets for bits of aluminum, glass or plastic.
Can collectors recycle hundreds of cans at smaller recycling machines, primarily found at grocery store chains and redemption centers. There are 12 redemption centers in Manhattan, six uptown, according to a report by the Council on the Environment of New York City. However, a spokeswoman for the council said there’s little data available on how the homeless and low-income residents boost can recycling efforts. So, often their contributions go unreported.
Edelberto, who immigrated to the United States in 1980, says he worked for more than 20 years all over the country — Chicago, Key West, Louisiana — as a welder, a Woolworth’s clerk, and even a guitar player. He claims to speak seven languages, and during conversation, flows easily from Spanish to French to English. He talks of traveling the world, spending time in South Africa and witnessing Nelson Mandela’s historic rise to the presidency. But now, he’s 66, living on little more than $320 in Social Security every month, and foraging for cans for three to four hours every day.
“I don’t want people to give me no money,” he says. He doesn’t mind “working hard for it,” even if that means looking through trash.
“Mira,” he says, peering over his delicate wire-rimmed glasses. His mass of salt-and-pepper hair is tucked in to a messy ponytail under his black and white baseball cap. “I do not care what people think when I’m trying to make a couple of bucks.”
Uptown resident, Edelberto, supplements his social security by can collecting. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)
On a Thursday, he has been searching since 9 a.m. It was now noon.
He stops systematically at every pile, poking around in all the bags and examining each can. He’s particular about opening and closing the bags and says he chooses not to leave them ripped open, like other collectors do, so residents and sanitation workers won’t complain about the litter caused by the slashed bags.
He holds up a Welch’s Fruit Punch can.
“See, this one is no good because it is missing its tab,” Edelberto explains and tosses it in back in the bag. “The machine won’t take it but I could take it to the scrap metal yard if I want to.”
At the Pathmark at 124th and Lexington Avenue, a few blocks from the shelter where he lives, Edelberto gets 5 cents per can, bottle or plastic container. But even the recycling center becomes a challenge for people just looking to earn some quick cash. He has to wait in a bustling line of people —a mix of the homeless and locals, with immigrant women chatting in Spanish and leaning on smaller push carts filled to the rim and twenty-somethings toting plastic bags full of cans slung over their shoulders.
But the line at this Pathmark is more orderly than other locations, like in Inwood and Washington Heights, according to Rich Stauffer, store manager at the 125th Street location.
“We’ve never really had too many problems,” Stauffer said. “Regular customers usually don’t complain. But if they do say something, we just ask the guys at the machine to let the others have their turn.”
But, in addition to long lines, some items, like out-of-state beer bottles, are not accepted. Sometimes carts and bags are stolen by others more desperate for change. And often, tempers flare if collectors jump ahead of others waiting in line.
Edelberto eyes a friend, William, who’s arguing with someone who has cut in line, and decides to wait his turn. After finally making it up to the blue machine marked “aluminum,” he deposits about a third of his cans — depositing his whole cart would take too long and annoy those still waiting their turn. He presses the button for his ticket and holds up the slip of paper; he just made 70 cents.
After depositing a third of his cans, Edelberto makes 70 cents. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)
Edelberto and William chat with the other locals huddled around the recycling machines and share stories, cigarettes and a bottle of liquor. William, like Edelberto and others on this East Harlem corner, is an expert at can collecting.
For the last several years, he’s split his time between the streets and the Kelly House, a local shelter for homeless New Yorkers with mental health disabilities, a couple of blocks away. He declines to give a last name but says he’s 58 and already suffered from bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and cocaine and heroin addictions.
He’s ventured far from his childhood in Bloomfield, N.J., where he grew up with several siblings, including Benjamin F. Holman, a pioneering black news reporter who worked for the Chicago Daily News and CBS News. He boasts of his own college education: a degree in accounting and child psychology. He smiles as he talks about his past but there’s a hint of sadness in his eyes.
The years of addiction wear on his face: his eyes have slightly yellowed, clashing against his brown skin.
He admits that many can collectors “do it for the alcohol and for the drugs” while “some do it to survive.” But, after knocking his own cocaine and heroin addiction, William says he still collects cans to satisfy one last, old habit.
“I’ll be honest. I do it for the alcohol and to survive,” he said. “I’m not happy but I’m content.”
So, he studies the machines. He knows which recycling centers, like the ones in Washington Heights that limit you to 12 dollars. He knows which scrap yards also accept aluminum and copper. He knows that broken bottles are still worth five cents.
“Once you figure out what they won’t take, you don’t even waste your time with that,” William said, leaning against his cart, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his worn, burgundy leather jacket. “If you cash in and don’t make enough, you get back out there. Time is valuable when you’re out here trying to make a dollar.”
He nods his head in the direction of the young woman beside him who just set aside a broken glass bottle.
“See, she hasn’t learned the game yet,” he says, knowingly. “You can still get credit for that bottle.”
“Hey, Miss! Miss!” he says, motioning for her attention. He shoves the glass bottle through and points at the 5 cent credit that pops on the screen.
“See, I told you,” he says but the woman continues depositing her cans with a look that implies either she didn’t want to be bothered or didn’t understand English.
William, a can collector, redeemed his ticket slips at a machine at the Pathmark on 125th Street. He made $4.25 that day. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)
William shrugs and grabs his last slip from the slot. Inside the Pathmark, he redeems four slips and makes a total of $4.25. He fans out the four bills and a quarter.
“See, so my beers cost about $1.25 each,” he says. “ I can get three beers. So, I’m good for the day.”
He tucks the cash in his pocket.
“You know, I’ve knocked cocaine,” he says, thoughtful. “I’ve knocked heroin. But I just can’t seem to knock alcohol.”
He shakes his head, pushing his empty cart out the supermarket’s door and back onto the street.
