Alex Pickett's latest report on the St. Pete City Council got me thinking. If the city's so worried about panhandlers and emissions caused by recycling trucks, why not lobby the state legislature for a bottle bill?
The town I spent the bulk of my college days in, East Lansing, also has a sizable homeless population — but panhandling never really seemed to be an issue there. Why? Because, in Michigan, you get ten cents back for every bottle or can you drop off at a recycling center. College students tend to throw away a shitload of alcohol containers, so that leads to a nice little symbiotic arrangement: Instead of having to beg for change, the homeless can earn it by taking care of a largely unwanted chore. Quid pro quo.
Midwestern winters are utterly abominable, though, so this self-sustaining enterprise isn't without its drawbacks for those who lack shelter from the elements. Certainly, a lot of folks (myself included) migrate to Florida to escape cold and snow; so it's no surprise that this state also has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. But here, for lack of a better economic alternative, the homeless are all but forced to become billboards advertising human misery. Which is awkward for everybody.
Last time I checked, even the smelliest vagrant doesn't emit nearly the amount of greenhouse gases the average recycling truck supposedly produces. Instead of letting the homeless spend the bulk of their time trying to come up with attention-grabbing signs (I don't recommend this one) to elicit sympathetic donations, why not put them to work returning bottles and cans by giving them an incentive to do so?
Probably because nobody wants to pay an extra five to ten cents for a beer.
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2008.