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Transcript Al Parks song You can do what you wanna do -- baby. You can go where you wanna go -- yeah. You can say what you want to say. Just learn how to recycle today. Bennie Sowell Your sleep is like a coffee break. It's hard work. It's a lot of hours. It's a lot of walking but a little pay, but it's got its other benefits. I love the old San Francisco. This new one I...I ain't got caught up with it yet. Harold Jason Sunbear This town used to be so friendly. You know it used to be nice. People used to stick together and help each other out. Now you gotta be kidding. Can't even sleep. Take off your shoes, they take it. Leave your blankets out, they take that. Park your cart out in front of the store they take it. I caught the guy down here that stole my stuff...I do it every day though. When somebody steals my cart, I go out look for another one and start in again, you know...Don't stop us what we're doing, 'cause it's, it's a hustle but it's work.
Recycling Center exchange Twelve pounds of clear. Yeah! Brown up. I carried this all myself. I hope you got two pounds of cans in here. I don't know. I don't think so. I didn't do too big on cans. I couldn't believe it. We have sixteen. Yeah! P.E.T. Al Parks I was unemployed. I was out of work and I found out about recycling from my brother Maurice Johns and he decided to let me know how to go about picking up the recycles, the recyclables that were refundable, you know, to get money for to, you know, survive and eat, have something, you know, in my pocket, you know, keep the jinx off of me. And I started picking up cans on the streets of San Francisco and I think I can pretty much say that I started picking up every can that I can find, you know. I would not, if I see a can, I would pick it up, I wouldn't just pass it by, you know, 'cause that's two cent, and every two cans is five cent and then you go into your poundage. And I felt that I wanted to, um, you know, to get into, like my own hustle, my own pattern and be able to make more, the more you pick up, the more money you receive, you know. Neil I, I haven't lost none of my strength. I get better and better at it, I think, thinking and moving, yup. Bennie Sowell You don't have time to say well, well so and so why did you try to hit me with the car, wuwuwuwuwa. If you do like that, you losing time, you know what I'm saying, just go on, go on down the road ...always moving, yup, always moving... you know if we don't pick up a lot of glass on that street, we saves a lot of flat tires, we saves a lot of tires...you know just about how much glass to get and how many cans to get, to get the amount of money in your mind that you want, when you do it for so long. Thomas Lang But they treat you like a dog, you know what I mean, plus the military too, they treat you like a dog here, you know, just like they did when we came back from Vietnam. The only people that gave us a parade was the people in Texas...It's self-pride on top of, uh, being, uh, independent. Also, uh, not relying on people for a goddamn thing...This gives me something to do everyday, you know what I mean, rather than sitting on my ass in a corner drinking wine or something else, I can walk around and, you know, do something constructive...They find out you got some money on you and they catch you sleeping, you wake up the next day, you don't have nothing. Addean We work very good together most of the time...They have to make their paycheck too, 'cause they're not gonna get any money if I do everything, right. So share some of the profit...If we don't have enough room in our cart and somebody else comes around with a car or an extra cart they will take some off, but usually they used to come up, trying to knock the cart over, which meant we lost money when these bottles break...I was standing over here with all these bottles and stuff, and everything, and just couldn't get 'em there to cash them up just 'cause I couldn't take them all...I might see a new purse, a new pair of socks, a new shirt, a new pair of pants, that's gonna pay for that. Brian See yesterday is about seven weeks since I've been hurt. So now, see, I got my shoe on. Hey, shoot the shoe, man. Thomas Lang Those shopping carts are built better than these cars are. Billy Ray Now I mostly find my cart abandoned some place and it be abandoned and I'll, you know, just get it and just walk around with it, you know. And then all of a sudden they gonna act like I'm a thief, and I'm not. Al Parks A tool for one to have, to use, instead of, you know, carrying it in his arms, or whatever, to bring, you know, his recyclables in...I have done, I call it, a Cadillac-style which is two buggies put together...if we can come up with a creative idea for us, if it would not interfere with the company or whoever, you know, has a business. But as far as a homeless person, or whatever that might need it, you know, I say go back to the originality of a go-cart...(chuckle)... Billy Ray We have to always push around these carts, take 'em up hills, four and five hundred pounds, just to make, you know, a few bucks, and try to survive. Larry Ketcherside My neighbors are, are notorious partyers, and, and I look at their trash when it goes out, and it's just bottles, bottles, bottles, bottles. Pat When I ran up on this restaurant about three years ago, they were throwing their recycling, like away, they had been throwing it away, um, it was like, they used to throw garbage and cans and bottles all together, and I used to have to sort through all the garbage just to get to the bottles and cans. It was terrible and then I started coming every day and I say, hey, made a routine out of this thing, saying, we ought to start separating the cans and the bot...from the garbage, we ought to start separating this. So they start separating this stuff from the garbage, then it made it easier for me. And, uh, after they start separating it from the garbage, I had a little competition. Some people wanting to come in and get it, you know, 'cause oh wow I don't have to dig through this garbage now, but I, I asked the restaurant first, could I get this. Arreighton Cole I love it, you know, keep a little change in your pocket, you know, for to get you some food, you know. Bennie Sowell It may take all the little money that you work for them twenty four hours. But you know what it is, is you eating what you want to eat, not something somebody's giving you to eat. Thomas Lang I eat better out of the garbage can than I do in one of these places. I say, look here, all beef wieners, all I do is wash 'em off, these are all beef wieners (just thrown out?). Yup. So I got my dinner for the night. Andrew I like it. Gives me something to do during the day, besides just sitting around the house looking crazy at television doing nothing...There's a lot of money involved in it, plus, it helps the planet. That's the main thing, right? Bennie Sowell Why you got so much competition now, you got to go a little further out now, see. Harold Jason Sunbear Matrix, shit. Bullshit, I call it. Woody But Matrix, take it and stick it up your butt...if there's anything out here in Golden Gate Park, there's a lot of homeless people. If there's anybody out here that needs help, don't be afraid to talk to a homeless person, 'cause we're the only ones out here and I say, we'll help you before the police even will. Ann The recycling, it keeps my husband and I going in between paychecks and he works darn hard for his money. Woody Why you get cut by a bottle, okay, and if you don't really take care of it right away, your hand swells up. Helen It's helped keep my kids alive. It helped me out and it's the only thing I can survive on. But it helps me day by day. But I'm not only doing that. But it helps the environment. Woody Snapple bottles, wine bottles, vodka bottles, they don't take all them. Al Parks It's California Redemption only. Neil What's, uh, thirteen times seventeen, I said, well, ten times seventeen, one seventy, three times seventeen, fifty-one, add 'em together, you got two twenty-one...Yeah, I've averaged over one hundred miles a week, I guess, for over twelve years, fifty-five to sixty thousand miles I've walked. Bennie Sowell You know, what San Francisco do for me, I like to always try to put something back in it. Al Parks And I feel that we have to, um, show an example toward other people, in that doing this is like not an easy task, you know, to, um, put up with different type of material that are recyclables. It has to be sorted and presorted. And then the ones that don't know what recycling's all about, we give them, you know, pamphlets, so that when they go home, they can understand what they should bring and what they should not bring. But it helps the environment and there's a change that's gonna come together for about, you know, the future, for what it is about people throwing away so much that is a waste by-product. But it also can be used, you know, to keep, you know, this city together. And I notice that there's more cans and more, you know, bottles out there that are just, you know, full of debris, and in people's yards and when a recycler goes by, picking it up out of their yard, he's helping that household right there, keeping their yard clean. So when they bring it here, it comes from all over, you know. And I feel that everybody's helping put forth a helping hand to keep, you know, San Francisco clean. Al Parks song When you see a young man walking down the street. Now do you ask that man, do he have a place to sleep. But he has the right just to be his own man. What you gotta try to do, is try to listen, try to understand. END |
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