By David P. Ball

The Binners Project helps coordinate, share resources and train the city’s many can and bottle collectors. But COVID-19 has brought swift change.

Vancouver’s can and bottle binning community is reeling from the swift and sweeping changes to their livelihoods since the pandemic hit.

On one hand, major sources of recyclables dried up — restaurants were closed for months, and public event facilities like the Convention Centre remain shuttered.

But on the other hand, more individuals are drinking more than ever at home and, increasingly thanks to the lower risk of COVID-19, outdoors in parks and beaches.

The impact on hundreds of binners who depend on finding cans and bottles to return has been dramatic.

Now, the province of B.C. is funding $115,000 to an organization that works with the community to develop shared opportunities and has plans to grow their environmental role being simply returning items for deposit.

The Pulse on CFRO speaks with Binners Project director Landon Hoyt about the pandemic's economic impacts on the Downtown Eastside’s' binning community, and how they have been forced to take their beloved community-building, job-sharing weekly meetings Into the alleys since COVID-19 hit.