THE BOTTLE REPORT

A confetti of shredded bottles and soda labels litter the street. Three Chinese women, two Dominican guys, and a handful of local street personalities hang around the bottle deposit stand outside of Key Foods on East 3rd Street. I'm hanging out with Milton, who's a wicked funny 53-year-old homeless black dude I met a few weeks ago. He picks through his glass bottles and cans while the rest of the people wait in line.

The problem right now is that there's a back up at the plastic bottle machine. It is full but no one is there to empty the case of shredded plastic that sits in the belly of the machine.

A more put-together black woman in rubber dish gloves lets out a heavy sigh. Her name is Thelma, and she's tired of waiting for this goddamn plastic bottle machine. "Watch my bag, Milton." Thelma runs into the store.

"I gotcha baby." Milton replies.

Among the bottle collectors, there is a camaraderie as though they are all working at the same job. They complain together when the machines break down, like officers workers bitching about the Xerox machine. Most of them work similar territory, but like Milton, most of them watch out for each other and will mind someone's bag of bottles while they run inside. Even though collecting bottles is the name of the game, they respect their colleagues' spoils.

Everyone working this neighborhood knows that the real jackpot is to wait for the Wednesdays outside of the nearby luxury condo buildings where a janitor combs through the recycling room on every floor and separates it into plastic, cans, and glass.

The die hards check each bag and pull out only the items they know will net them their five cents. Newbies and your average dabbler who does it just for a little extra money will pick up any bag they find, which usually means they'll haul a full bag to the store and return only half of it.

Igor, the photographer, decided that he should try collecting some recycling on his own as we walked around Alphabet city. After digging through trash and getting covered in some sort of unknown cigarette-smelling juice, Igor had produced about 12 items. Of those dozen, the machines only took three, with the rest ending up back in the trash.

Milton is the resident expert on what the machines will take. "Glass bottles are usually good for something but they heavy," he says. "Cans are hit or miss. Like, watch," he feeds in a Budweiser and the machine takes it. He feeds in a Colt 45, and it spits it out.

The city will take any kind of recycling you have, the bottle machine won't.

Continued next week…

TEXT BY BRENDAN SULLIVAN
PHOTOS AND ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NATE "IGOR" SMITH