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Can clean-up

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Schools collect them too as a fundraiser. It's called "shigen kaishu". In my town, the local government also pays the school to do it, so most of the money actually comes from them, not from selling the scrap cans. The government could of course just give the school the money without getting all the parents (its just as much them as the kids) to drive around collecting the cans.

When I looked it up, it was around 1.2 yen for an aluminium can and about 0.3 yen for a steel one.

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It is not only homeless which are involved in dealing with can. One of my neighbor has usually a big bunch of these bag in front of ones place and flatten the can.

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This is the reality of the predatory capitalist globalized economy. Many fail to realize they work harder and perform more socially useful service than your average family of financiers.

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The case for UBI in a photo!

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Yes, I think it is patently obvious he is not some good samaritan collecting cans to clean up the neighbourhood.

@zichi: Is that what they get? Y100 a bag? I've always wondered about that.

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Likewise with the paper and cardboard collectors.

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These guys are great and I was really angry when city governments began actively cutting them out of collection services. Currently in my area, can collection from the city is once a month and supermarkets / convenience stores have shut their collection boxes so there are no really convenient way to dispose of cans. People like the man pictured above have picked up the slack and kept many near by areas looking clean along with other janitorial service workers.

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Sorry to spoil the intent of this photo but it is a photo of a homeless man collecting cans for money not cleaning the area. Actually looks like my area near Tama River. The homeless in my area are actually a community with a leader. One cannot just pop up a tent alone the riverside if the wind up homeless. They go out on trash collection days, gather things of value to sell of trade. On recycle day they collect cans bring it to s designated area, crash the cans, the sell them to a recycle company. Most places the money is divided among the homeless in that specific area. In a sense they are working. In addition, they have they own specific area for collection and the rule is, other homeless are not permitted to collect from another's area. Final note, very respectful to the neighborhood residences.

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