The Blog

Fritz and Robert Take Me to Work

I met Fritz and his friend Robert Som­mer one Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Fritz said, “You wan­na know what our life is like? Ok, Bring your cam­era and fol­low us.” Beers in hand, we made our way behind a shop­ping plaza, along a creek bed and under the 101 High­way com­ing out in a clear­ing near a large apart­ment complex.

We paused for a few min­utes and being curi­ous I asked, “ So what are we doing and where are we going?” Sip­ping on a beer he had trans­ferred into a Sty­ro­foam cup, Fritz said, “ You go to work every­day, so do we. We dig through the dump­sters look­ing for bot­tles, cans, food and cloth­ing. Any­thing we can use. You’d be sur­prised what peo­ple throw away. If you get sick and take the day off, you prob­a­bly still get paid. If we miss a day, it’s the dif­fer­ence between eat­ing or going hun­gry. So, we are going to take you on our route.”

Fritz told me he makes about $25.00 a week recy­cling. I did the math in my head and thought per­haps his esti­mates were a bit over­stat­ed. After all, you would need to recy­cle 500 con­tain­ers to earn $25.00. Robert, who has a larg­er route and takes any recy­clable, says he can make twice that. One of the chal­lenges with recy­cling is that glass weights con­sid­er­ably more than plas­tic and car­ry­ing that kind of load the near­ly 1‑¾ miles to the recy­cling cen­ter takes a lot of strength and sta­mi­na. That wouldn’t be a prob­lem this day as I planned on dri­ving them to their des­ti­na­tion. The recy­cling prizes are the 2.7‑ounce Yakult Pro­bi­ot­ic con­tain­ers. They stand but 4 inch­es tall, take up min­i­mal vol­ume yet they yield the same $.05 as a 2‑liter bottle.

 Life on the streets is about under­stand­ing your envi­ron­ment, being effi­cient and tak­ing advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties. I was amazed at how well Fritz and Robert knew their route. Garbage trucks come on Thurs­days so you need to get out espe­cial­ly ear­ly to beat them to the dump­sters. Fri­day is gen­er­al­ly a day off since the trucks have been by the day before. Sat­ur­day and Sun­days are gen­er­al­ly the best day to recy­cle since ten­ants have been par­ty­ing on the week­ends. But you can’t go too ear­ly because every­one is hung over and they don’t take out the trash until lat­er in the day.

Fritz and Robert Share a Brick Of Cheese

We weaved our way through the apart­ment com­plex, mov­ing from dump­ster to dump­ster.  I was tak­en by what peo­ple are will­ing to endure when your sur­vival depends on it.  Robert found sev­er­al expired cans of food that he stuffed in his back­pack.  Moldy bread and cheese that were bak­ing in the dump­sters under the sum­mer sun were tossed in a shop­ping bag for lat­er.   The scav­enger hunt con­tin­ued, old ham­burg­ers and fries, peanut but­ter, half filled OJ con­tain­ers, par­tial­ly rot­ten fruits and veg­eta­bles.  Any­thing that could pos­si­bly pro­vide nour­ish­ment was con­sumed or saved for lat­er.  I asked Fritz and Robert if they were con­cerned about get­ting sick and I was told that the streets are a quick fix for finicky eaters. 

Dig­ging to Survive

 I felt a mix of nau­sea, sad­ness and heartache.  How is it that we allow peo­ple to live this way?   I knew in that moment that in some small way I was going to do all I can to make a difference. 

Share a moment when you reached out to help a home­less person.