Josefa Marín

Josefa Marín has been working as a recycler for more than 20 years. In 2012-2013, she joined Sure We Can, a non-profit recycling center founded in 2007 by Ana De Luco and Eugene Gadsden to support marginalized residents in Brooklyn and a community of people making a living from collecting and redeeming cans and bottles. Two years ago, she led a project to organize canners in her community.  

Josefa Marín

She/her

Self Employed in Recycling and President of the Alliance of Independent Recyclers of New York City

Bushwick, Brooklyn 

Q&A

Josefa Marín is Spanish speaking, so the following interview was conducted with a translator and has been edited for length and clarity.  

What got you involved in recycling and canning?

I wasn’t sure when I first started out whether to focus on recycling bottles and cans, or more on collecting metal and other things to sell by weight. I started out doing it all at once. So I would collect the bottles and cans and also the metal, and I would go to one place that could accept both of those things. But over time, I started focusing more and more on just the bottles and cans. By 2009-2010 I was dedicating myself entirely to bottles and cans. I believe it's work even though it's not recognized that way. It pays my rent. It puts food on my table. It’s my job. 

What does a typical day look like for you? 

First thing I do is I arrive here at Sure We Can, and then I set up the space where I'm going to work. So I don't collect like street by street in the way that I used to. Now I have relationships with buildings or others who give me a large volume of materials. This weekend, there weren't a lot of events or a lot going on, so there wasn't a lot of recycling. It felt like I was just waiting around for people to bring out trash to me. So I collect what I can collect, and then I come in the morning to Sure We Can to sort.

Could you talk about the community and your relationship with people in the community?

With the recycling community, and especially here at Sure We Can, we are like a family. We try to help each other to survive and thrive – to support each other. There are things that happen between people here that can't be easily described. It's hard to put into words, but when someone has the heart to be a part of the community, they're able to participate, be part of it, to help others and to be helped themselves. And that's really what we try to focus on and do here at Sure We Can is extend that helping hand to each other and then just be there for each other. It's the environment that is unique. It's hard to find a space like Sure We Can, where canners can feel supported and like a part of something – where they can get help. It's also a space where we can feel comfort and belonging. If it rains or snows, we can keep working. Other centers will make canners stand out on the street, or it's super transactional or cold, But here, canners will get hot coffee or hot chocolate or tea. Right now, it's not the time of year for cold water, but there's always water here for people and just little things to make them feel better.

Can you talk about the importance of the bottle bill? 

It means a huge amount. So, right now, if you collect the containers and you don't sort them yourself, which Sure We Can pays a little extra for, you can earn five cents per piece. That's just not enough piece by piece to pay for the costs of living, even of surviving at this point. You can go to the corner and get a meal of beans that cost $15. How many bottles and cans do I have to get for one dinner of eggs? To have double the deposit, even if we didn't all necessarily earn double, because more people would be doing it, it would be a little extra help that allows for food on the table. And it’s not just the eggs, everything costs more. 

What's one thing that you enjoy about what you do, and one thing that is challenging or tough? 

One thing that really makes me excited about our work is fighting to change the law to raise the deposit from five cents to 10 cents, fighting for the bottle bill [Senate Bill S237B]. What I’d  really like to change is just the perspective of many people who look at this work. I'd like to change their minds and perspectives so that we're not marginalized, so that we're not looked down upon in the street or insulted, because truly we're doing really important work for the community and for the planet. Sometimes even our community is looked at as scavengers, or people who make problems, or who go through bags and leave trash on the street. But my message is that those of us who really do this work and who earn our livelihood from it, we don't do that. We treat this work with respect, and we want to be respected too. 

Do you have any mentors among the people you work with?

I’m inspired by everybody. My colleagues who I work with here. I'm inspired by the work that Sure We Can does because it's so uncommon. And I've always asked myself, “Why? Why is it that there's only one place that does this kind of work for canners?” So I'm inspired by the work that they do to teach others and to [help] other canners get the benefits that I’ve received. It's not just one or two centers that we need, but we really need many, many, many across the city and state, because it's not just a few recyclers who need these kinds of services. There's thousands and thousands of people and they don't have access to this kind of stuff. They don't have access to that hot coffee in the winter or cold water in the summer. And they need it. And I can say what the recyclers need, because I'm a recycler and I need it. The places I went to before Sure We Can, they didn't give me any help, not even a cup of water. And I went to a lot of different places. 

How do you think the average New Yorker or citizen can help?

Don't crush the cans. If you press the cans, then they can't be redeemed. And please be careful with broken glass. Don't put it in the recycling, because canners are going through [the recyclables] and they're going to cut themselves on broken glass. Broken Glass also makes automated recycling systems less efficient. So it's not good to recycle anyway.

Is there anything else I should’ve asked you that you want to talk about? 

There’s a holiday we celebrate that nobody's aware of and nobody recognizes. I think it's time for this to change. And we should say as recyclers: We exist, and this is our day. So the day is March 18th, the International Day of Recyclers, which recognizes a day where several Colombian waste pickers were murdered by corporate actors who were taking advantage of them, and so it's a day to recognize that there are many thousands of people across the world who do this type of work. They're marginalized, excluded and not supported across the world – not just here. It's an opportunity for us to raise the fact that they exist and they're doing so much important stuff for all of us.