On Friday, Feb. 10, Justin Gottlieb hosted what he called a “Homeless Huddle” to organize people who make money recycling cans in Bend. Gottlieb’s background is in marketing and community organizing — including an unsuccessful bid to join the Bend Park and Recreation District board — but he started collecting and recycling aluminum cans in 2020.
Gottlieb liked canning but didn’t like the limits placed on how many cans he could return a day. Bend’s Bottle Drop accepts a maximum of 350 cans a day. Gottlieb’s meeting was a step to overturn current laws or otherwise work around or create a permit process for canners. We caught up with Gottlieb after the meeting to learn more about the project. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Source Weekly: I’ll start by just asking how you got into canning?
Justin Gottlieb: It was during the beginning of COVID-19. I was unemployed, no aid was coming through. And one day I asked my property manager if she minded if I started collecting the cans here in the building, to have a few extra bucks. She said yes and the rest is history.
SW: How many cans can you collect in a day? And where do you typically source them from?
JG: It varies. I Those of us that do it, gather most of our supply from the blue recycling bins. I use a technique where I canvass turfs instead of randomly going through neighborhoods. I actually know the folks I’m getting cans from. On Halloween, I attempt to drop everyone a little piece of candy and a card thanking them for their support. And many of us who can do try and do outreach, but no one wants us ringing their doorbell at 4am.
SW: Is there ever any conflict with the people recycling in those blue bins?
JG: There is conflict. There’s conflict in the property owners and those of us that are trying to collect the cans. It has to do with the fact that no one knows who owns the refuse once it’s taken to the street. Remember, no one owns trash, and if they did it would be stupid.
SW: What was the goal of the homeless huddle and the outcome of that meeting?
JG: The goal was to try and create awareness of the $35 per day limit, the number of cans that are being improperly disposed of, and that many of us are attempting to use this to get our own lives moving.
SW: And what was the turnout like?
JG: We had about a dozen people I’d say. It’s really hard to have a meeting from 7 to 9 in the morning. We had someone swing by who was legitimately homeless working out of, living out of their backpack. We had someone swing by who was doing the canning in the same way that I am with the same issue. We had an individual who was working part time and choosing to live out of his vehicle. We also had a neighborhood activist swing by asking what was up, as well as a nice Hispanic immigrant who was looking for work and couldn’t hardly speak a lick of English. And that’s a pretty good cross-section in terms of, we need to figure out which services are targeting which groups so we know where to place everyone. From my perspective, I’m a sociologist, and an archaeologist and a public administrator. And I’ve just kind of found my calling. I’m happier doing what I’m doing now working from 3 in the morning til 10 am than I ever was working for corporate America or Main Street America.
SW: What’s the challenge of organizing this group?
JG: The challenges are broad and far-reaching. Number one, that the income they can legally earn does not allow them to have a permanent address. Imagine yourself working and only being able to earn $35 per day. We like to say that, as far as we care, everyone can get up at 3am, sort trash and live in a tent. We all say we want to recycle. But we really don’t want to put the infrastructure in place. I would say I’m disappointed by the responses I’ve got from the local social service agencies, as well as the trash service. This appears to be the one thing that no one wants to talk about. But the folks living in the trash would like to discuss all of this.
SW: The meeting was called Homeless Huddle; are people canning usually homeless or are some housed and doing this as a side gig?
JG: The beauty of this project is, whether it’s a union, whether it’s an association, whether it’s a code of conduct, that anyone would be able to participate, be it an adult, child, living at home, someone who’s graduated from college, I take a very, very broad view of what it means to be homeless. That I know folks who use this to pay off medical debts. I just was able to secure financing for a new vehicle because of this. And we need some rules at the state level, so that we can stop yelling at each other, and fighting about something that we all agree on.
SW: How do companies that pick up recycling feel about this?
JG: This clashes with the Oregon bottle and recycling cooperative, Republic Trash Services, Oregon beverage companies, the beer industry, the OLCC, the wholesale Beer Distribution, that this thing literally touches every aspect of commerce. All you have to do is go to your grocery store and look at how many aisles have redeemable containers in them. The reason I’m going very, very slowly on all of this, because I would rather work with people than against them.
SW: I saw you reached out to our local legislators. What are your next steps?
JG: We need to figure out a permit process or a workaround on this $35 per day, 350 per person container rule. I don’t know what that looks like. I could use help. I’m self-funding this organization to a certain extent.
This article appears in Feb 15, 2023 – Feb 21, 2024.
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Sorry, but the push to allowing so many cans in one day is what drove the grocery outlets to get the return process removed from their operations and now to a very limited number of bottle drop locations. This now requires consumers to increase their car emissions footprint making extra trips to non-convenient locations and the drop locations have a significant history of being unsanitary with machine breaking at a very high rate and very long wait times to use machines (not to mention harassments by panhandlers seeking extra cans). Thus, consumers began to just toss the cans/bottles into their home trash and the state recycling rate dropped so much that the state was required to increase the deposit to 10 cents per container. Increasing the daily limit will drive even more consumers to avoid the drop locations and toss even more into trash essentially destroying the original intent of the Bottle Bill.