Vancouver Foundation

p a g e 2 0 I V a n c o u v e r F o u n d a t i o n l F a l l 2 0 1 6 Every Monday, Michael Leland cycles to the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, towing a bike trailer. e trailer sports his own modifications: its load capacity has been expanded thanks to a freezer rack. Sometimes accompanied by a fellow member of the Binners' Project, he pulls bottles and cans from a weekend of garbage, then bags and loads them—carefully—onto his trailer. "Centering the load is a skill," he says with a laugh. "You can only put so much on a trailer before the wheels give out." en he bikes to the United We Can depot on Industrial Avenue. "It's a heavy load, around 150 pounds. It's like doubling somebody all the way," he says. On one trip to the yacht club in the summer, he figures he might recycle 2,500 bottles and cans. anks to arrangements made by the Binners' Project, Leland has many other weekly stops, from PureBread bakery to the head offices of Earl's. He joined the program in May of 2015. Since then it has helped set him up with recycling gigs, such as collect- ing bottles and cans at the Kitsilano Festival—or even the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup games that drew 50,000 people to BC Place. "We had up to seven guys at each outing. We were making $200 a day on that one," says Leland. "It was incredible." Welcome to the life of a self-employed recycler. It's tough work. Leland, a team leader with the Binners' Project, knows this well. He's been a "binner" for 14 years. Now in his 60s, Leland works eight to 10 hours a day, six or seven days a week in the summer. In winter he's able to get that down to five. "I've never found a way to get under a five-day week," he says with a smile. He's no stranger to hard work. For most of his career Leland was a commercial fisherman in the herring, halibut and salmon fisheries, among others. But following the death of his wife and a heart attack—and while fighting addiction—he ended up homeless in the Downtown Eastside in the early 2000s. "I had no benefits from fishing, and when I first got down here, I was a little lost and I lived outside for a while," he recalls. "I was walk- ing down an alley and I found $18 worth of beer cans in one spot. So I started pushing a cart around. at was 14 years ago and I've been at it ever since." Binners endure 52 weeks a year of uncertain work in all kinds of weather. Often treated as outcasts, most lead solitary lives as they push shopping carts or tow bike trailers across the city. e Binners' Project was started in 2014 by Ken Lyotier, the founder and former Executive Director of United We Can, to improve the lives of independent recyclers on multiple fronts. It is now run by Executive Director Anna Godefroy, who volun- teered with Ken since the inception. "ese are people that work really hard," says Godefroy. "ey get up every morning and take their carts all over the city. ey want financial autonomy, and they are proactive and resil- ient. I find that really inspiring." e Binners' Project engages about 300 urban recyclers annu- ally in workshops, meetings, and events like the Coffee Cup Revolution, in which recyclers pick up coffee cups all over the Lower Mainland for a five-cent refund. e project has three main With the help of the Binners' Project, Michael Leland has gained security—and learned to see the value in his work By Tyee Bridge | Photos roBerT Karpa Recycle, Recover,

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