My first job in the workforce focused on profiling and segregation.
I spent much of my 16th
year in the dank underground of a supermarket, determining whether the
bottles and cans returned for a nickel deposit really came from our store.
Those that didn’t were pitched in the trash; those that did were separated by
material and color then stacked or bagged for recycling.
Nothing felt physically good about this work.
Certainly not the sticky soda residue that inevitably coated my skin and
clothes or the stench of stale beer that remained in my nasal membranes for
hours past quitting time. However, it was somewhat satisfying psychologically. I was literally on the basement floor of a burgeoning environmental
and financial movement. Our state's “bottle bill” had been in place only a few
years at the time and already a difference could be seen. Fewer empties lined our
state’s roadsides replaced by garbage-bag-toting fortune seekers.