There’s a whole shadow economy built around collecting cans and bottles for the 5-cent deposit in NYC, with more layers than you can imagine. Here’s a thread about it: nytimes.com/2019/12/26/nyr…
There are trucks that cruise the Upper East Side buying bags of cans and bottles that people collect. There are canners who sell to other canners, and battles between truckers. 
There’s a 3 a.m. scene under the Manhattan Bridge where dozens of canners line up to sell to the trucks.
There’s a crazy battle between city and state, which run competing recycling systems. A measure backed by the governor to expand the deposit bill would screw the city but bring millions to the state. The whole system is so complicated it requires a flow chart
There’s a canning center in Brooklyn run by a social-justice nun where the canners have joined the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
There are super-canners who have deals with bars and make $500/nite. But most make much much less. A woman from China who made $90 for 3 nights’ collecting told us, 'I never thought that in America I’d be doing this kind of work.'
Read my full story about the complicated world of can collecting nytimes.com/2019/12/26/nyr…
w/ tons of great reporting in 3 languages by @spiccoli @jocoem @jeffreyesinger and great pix by @AndrewSeng_
