Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 12/4/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Carlos Moreno Mariano Hernandez, 72, a San Jose resident from Agua Prieta, Mexico, picks up recyclables near Dudley Moorhead Hall on Nov. 13. Hernandez spends 10 hours every day scavenging for empty plastic bottles and aluminum cans to supplement his income. He makes $40 on a good day.

Rarely do students think about the life of an empty bottle they casually throw in the blue recycling bins scattered around campus. Unbeknownst to them, their trash is the prize in an ongoing war between scavengers and the university.

Mariano Hernandez

Mariano Hernandez has perfected the art of collecting recyclables. At age 72, he begins each day at 9 a.m., when he arrives on campus with his empty shopping cart.

As he waits patiently for students to finish their morning coffee, he circles the campus, stopping to root through trash and recycling bins to collect the aluminum, glass and plastic bottles and cans.

At 10 a.m., his day starts to pick up. Students move on from sipping coffee to guzzling bottles of water and cans of soda. If it's a hot day, Hernandez is hopeful he will find even more recyclables.

"Right now, I haven't collected a lot," Hernandez said through a Spanish translator as he pointed to a half-full shopping cart. "I've seen a lot of people who collect from the bins. Most of them are women and children."

Hernandez estimated that he makes $20 to $40 a day from the recycling he collects, which he said isn't much.

The California Refund Value is five to 10 cents per can or bottle.

"Right now, I don't consider myself homeless because the government gives me a Social Security check, which pays for the room where I sleep," he said.

Hernandez, who said he started collecting recyclables seven years ago, concludes his day when it gets dark.

"I come here to the university because there are so many students," Hernandez said. "The students know me here. They even give me donations. … I appreciate it."

When the semester is over, Hernandez is forced to move his operation to the streets, where he doesn't make as much money.

"I collect mostly here at the university, but when students go on vacation, I'm usually collecting recyclables on the streets."

Hernandez said he was born in the town of Agua Prietas, Mexico. He said he crossed over the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and found a job as a field worker in Arizona.

After he changed his paperwork to become a legal U.S. citizen, he left Arizona to move to California in 1978, he said.

"I was getting too old," he said. "I couldn't do what I used to do when I was younger. Plus, I wasn't making much."

When Hernandez moved to California, he said he found work as a janitor. He has since retired, and he and his wife live in San Jose. He said he hardly sees his grown children, who live in Salinas.

"They do come to visit, but they have their problems and they have to deal with their own lives," Hernandez said. "But they are good kids. I say this because I'm their father."

Despite spending every day on campus, Hernandez said he doesn't have problems with the police.

He said the police officers tell him to be careful not to cut himself on broken bottles and to contact University Police Department if he sees or hears something suspicious in the bins.

"This," Hernandez said as he gestured to his cart of recyclables, "I do not advise students to do. They should just study. Keep their opportunities open. Work hard."

"Juan"

When "Juan," a 50-year-old man whose name has been replaced by an alias, is hungry, he walks to SJSU. He roots through the trash in the hopes of finding a half-eaten piece of pizza or a discarded sandwich.

He said he has visited the campus since he was 18 years old.

"I come out here because our owner is so strict at the boarding care home I live at because I'm a mental case, a nut," he said.

Juan said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 17.

Schizophrenia is a medical illness resulting in distorted thoughts and hallucinations. It can cause feelings of fright and paranoia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health's Web site.

"I used to go around the street waving handkerchiefs, putting toilet paper on trees. (My family) took me into the nuthouse."

Juan said his brother and his mother took him to the hospital after his eyes started to twitch uncontrollably when he was 18.

"(My mother) grabbed me by the legs and tied me up by the legs and arms and took me to the psycho ward."

Juan said he stayed in the hospital, where he was diagnosed, for two weeks before he was released.

Now, Juan calls home a boarding house on 10th Street where he's lived at for almost two decades.

"The administrator at the house, he gives me $2 to $3 a day and a pack of cigarettes. My mom brings me over money and clothes once a month, but not all the time I have money."

Juan said the boarding home feeds him, but not enough.

"When I get hungry, I have to eat. I can't stand it," he said. "I can't stand the pain of hunger. So I come out here and look at the garbage. I have no choice."

Juan said he isn't embarrassed about going through the trash. He just doesn't want to feel like he bothers students on campus.

"Sometimes when you wander in a place and you're looking around and you got no money, they think you're doing something wrong," Juan said. "So what I do most of the time is just come out, and then I have a conversation with someone in the college-we have a cigarette or a cup of coffee or a soda, whatever it is."

Juan said that because of his illness, he doesn't have a job. He said that when he was 13 he dropped out of school to work in the orchards of San Jose picking seasonal fruits.

He eventually got his GED when he was 18 and found a job as a janitor.

Now he said he spends his days at his home, talking with friends and visiting campus.

Michelle

Michelle, a slender, middle-aged woman with a thick accent, visits SJSU twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, to collect recyclables from the bins on campus.

She said she was laid off and likes to exercise while collecting recyclables to combat the effects of her diabetes.

She said she would get $2 for her half-filled garbage bag.

"Some people very mean," Michelle said. "They're mean because we are poor. We cannot find a job, so we go around to make a little bit money so we can buy food."

Michelle said she is frightened when people tell her they are going to call the police if she doesn't stop taking the recyclables.

"White people say, 'No, no stealing. We're calling the police,'" Michelle said. "It make me scared, so I go away."

But that doesn't deter Michelle for long.

"I see somebody take from blue bin," Michelle said as she points to the blue recycling bins found on campus. "I take."

The University's Role

The San Jose Conservation Corp, the organization responsible for collecting the recyclables on campus, uses the revenue from cans and bottles to pay for its interns to attend college.

Last year, the Conservation Corp collected 4.3 tons of recyclables.

Terri Ramirez, the recycling and moving services specialist at the facilities development and operations office, estimated the group would collect 85 to 86 tons of cans and bottles a year if people didn't scavenge them.

This translates into 80 tons of recyclables that the Conservation Corp couldn't use to pay for its interns to attend school.

Regina Garcia, director of recycling at the Conservation Corp, said there isn't enough money to purchase secure recycling bins designed to deter scavengers.

"The scavengers often leave a big mess," Ramirez said. "They often throw what they don't want on the ground floors inside the buildings or around the recycling bins … which means even more work for the interns to clean."

Sgt. Mike Santos of the University Police Department said it technically isn't a crime if someone takes less than $50 worth of recyclables from the blue bins.

"If it's one or two soda cans, we conduct a field interview and let them know it's not allowed," Santos said.

Santos said that if a scavenger stole between $50 and $400 worth of recyclables, the person could be cited for petty theft.

Back to Hernandez

At 7 p.m., Hernandez stops looking for recyclables. He has spent the past 10 hours digging through every trash can and recycling bin he could find.

On a good day, his shopping cart of plastic and glass treasures would get him $40.

On a bad day, no more than a few dollars.

But Hernandez doesn't have much time to dwell on this. In a few short hours he'll be back on campus to start the cycle over again.

*Carlos A. Moreno translated the interview with Mariano Hernandez

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools