'It's honest work': Dubliners who collect bottles and cans on the streets share their stories

We sat down with four men who collect bottles and cans to raise money for food, Leap card top-ups, phone bills and more.

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“What is the alternative, begging? That would be more degrading to me.”

“How dare they call people scavengers. Do you think people want to go through the bins?”

These are the words of men who have collected bottles and cans in Dublin to pay for food and drink, baby formula, Leap card top-ups, phone bills, and to be able to give money to their children.

On Tuesday, Dublin City Council chief executive Richard Shakespeare was the top story on the Irish Independent website with his strongly worded remarks about “scavenging” for bottles to recover the 15c deposits – remarks which received a further airing in Shakespeare’s several radio appearances this week.

On Wednesday evening, The Journal sat down with four of the men Shakespeare was talking about. Over dinner in the Lighthouse Cafe on Dublin’s Pearse Street, operated by the social care organisation Tiglin, the men shared their experiences.

A Dublin man who has collected bottles and cans in the past said the problem is not people going through the bins – the problem is that there are so many people who need to do so.

He said that so-called ‘scavenging’ is something humans have always done “since time began”, adding that collecting bottles and cans for recycling is no different to gathering scrap metal. He said that while “it is degrading going through trash”, there is “nothing wrong” about it, and to suggest otherwise is wrong.

He said he believes Dublin’s streets are safer now that people in addiction have this source of income available to them, as it is surely better than robbing.

“How dare they call people scavengers? Do you think people want to go through the bins?

“People need to pay for electricity, bus fares, top up their phone.

“Even if people are buying alcohol, at least they’re not robbing, not going into the off-licence and grabbing beers.”

He said a small minority, usually with serious drug addiction, may rip or empty bin bags to get bottles. (This was Richard Shakespeare’s complaint.) However, the man said most people do not create any mess while collecting bottles and cans.

He showed a photo of some large plastic bags of cans and bottles he and a friend collected over a few hours walking along the seafront in Bray last year. They raised about €60 that day.

He said he has collected bottles when he needs cash, for example when his child has asked him for €20.

“What do you do, if your kid asks you for twenty quid?” he said.

Another man said he started collecting bottles when his residence permit expired and he was unable to work. He has lived in Ireland for over 20 years but it was slow and difficult to secure residency.

He said he needed the money from collecting to keep his Leap card for public transport and his phone credit topped up. He said it has also helped with extra money for food, in case he misses a mealtime in the hostel where he is staying.

He said collecting bottles is also “something to do, better than sitting around”. Sometimes he might go out to, say, Sandymount, and collect bottles there for a few hours.

File photo of the Lighthouse Cafe on Pearse Street in Dublin, with people waiting outside to get something to eat. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

“If anything, it’s a service. If you go to Croke Park on a big match day there are lots on the ground. People are going around collecting those bottles, clearing up, doing a service to the city,” he said.

“What is the alternative, begging? Personally, that would be more degrading to me than picking cans, so I would rather pick cans.

He too said only a small minority of people create litter while looking for bottles, adding: “With everything, there is always someone who messes it up.”

He said that his roommate in the hostel where he is staying has a job in a warehouse, but he collects bottles too.

“I know other people who collect bottles who have kids – they keep the receipts until Christmas and use them to buy presents. There are all sorts of reasons why people are doing it,” he said.

He said before he lost his job, he did not pay much attention to people who were homeless or begging. He suggested Richard Shakespeare too is “out of touch”.

“It’s sad for a public servant to say that. He should broaden his experience, meet people, find out what the issues are.

“He needs to broaden his mind, not just worry about the well-to-do – find out what people are going through and do a better job. And be more measured in his comments in future.”

An Irish man who is on social welfare and staying in a family hub with his baby after losing his job last year said it can be useful to have extra money from collecting bottles and cans, in particular to buy food, formula and babygrows for his child.

“I’ll put my hand in a bin to feed my child. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my child,” he said.

He said if he brings two black bags of bottles and cans to Supervalu that could be worth €28.

He wears three layers of gloves to put his hands in the bin, including work gloves and Marigold rubber gloves.

“You’ve no idea what you’re putting your hand into. There could be people’s used needles, dirty nappies, sick. It’s a Russian roulette,” he said.

He believes the deposit-return scheme was a “good idea” to promote recycling, which it has done. He believes the incentive it has created for people to go through bins has no easy solution as long as there are people living in poverty.

“You can’t designate a bin just for bottles, there would be fighting over it. Some people are feeding habits, some people are doing it to feed children, some people need extra money to get to the end of the week.

“People unfortunately have to go through the bins, and it’s not just people who are addicts. I have no addictions, but I’m still homeless.”

An Irishman who sleeps on the streets said collecting cans and bottles helps many people who are homeless keep going, and it keeps litter off the streets.

“People that collect cans and bottles are people that are stuck, and the people who throw them in the bin are too lazy to do it. People that are homeless, that’s their way to get by,” he said.

“People do it for food, families, everything. They’re saying we’re scavengers. Some people that do it do wreck the place, but the likes of myself, I do it for a purpose. We do this to keep ourselves going – €254 [social welfare] a week, that’s nothing.

“I sleep on the streets. Only for the likes of the Lighthouse and Brother Luke’s, we’d have nothing. Some people might do it for drugs. I don’t do drugs. I do drink, but it [collecting] is always for a purpose. The people who do it, it’s their income.”

He added that for some people who are not from Ireland and not entitled to get social welfare, collecting bottles is an important source of income.

“I know some people who are not from this country who are out at 4 o’clock in the morning, and they don’t stop until 6 o’clock at night,” he said.

“People who do this, it’s an income for them, that’s what it is. It’s not a scavenge, it’s security, it’s support.”

The Journal’s reporting of the new Local Community Safety Partnerships is supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.

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