At The People’s Depot, a makeshift can-and-bottle redemption site tucked under the Morrison Bridge, doing business is all about efficiency and kindness.
Efficiency for the typically 150 people who show up each weekday on foot, bicycles pulling trailers or skateboards or in dilapidated cars with beverage containers they’ve spent hours collecting from recycling and trash bins. Staff rapidly count cans for a 10 cent refund in the slim two-hour-and-15-minute window that the site is open Monday through Friday.
Kindness because there is no judgment here for the largely homeless patrons, who say they use the money for all sorts of needs: food, gas, cigarettes, clothes or yes, some say, drugs…