How Recyclers and Vendors in New York City are Challenging Big Money to Build a Better City for Working People

Resilient workers in New York City's informal economy.

29 July 2024

Jenna Harvey

On a street corner in New York City, below some of the most iconic symbols of global wealth and power, a recycler can be seen picking up discarded Coke cans, and a street vendor sells lunches to construction workers from her makeshift cooler-cart. In an increasingly unlivable city, one of the most expensive in the world, workers in informal employment fill critical gaps in the local economy. In the process, they challenge powerful, private interests, and seed potential for a city that recognizes and addresses the needs of a more diverse public, rather than just the most privileged.

Who are street vendors and recyclers in NYC and how is their work regulated?

The street vending and recycling sectors in NYC are incredibly diverse – made up primarily of immigrants from all over the world. A recent study on recyclers in NYC reveals the work provides a source of earnings for those who would otherwise be shut out of the labor market (because of immigration status, criminal record, or health issues, for example), and for the elderly and people living with disabilities, who are insufficiently supported by the social safety net. For many immigrant street vendors, the work has allowed them to secure an economic foothold in the city.

Even with a recent revision to the regulatory framework for street vending (driven by the Street Vendor Project), strict caps on permits and years-long waiting lists make it nearly impossible to vend in compliance. Even if vendors could access permits, onerous rules around the type and placement of carts they use represent additional barriers. After a brief pandemic-era relaxation of enforcement, vendors are once again facing harassment, confiscations and fines of up to $1000. Recently, the government faced backlash after police were filmed handcuffing a 12-year-old girl for selling fruit with her family in a park.

For recyclers, their work is enabled by an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework that establishes a deposit for the redemption of bottles and cans. Under the system, recyclers and others collect deposit-marked containers that have been discarded outside of residences, businesses, or from street litter, and sell them for 5 cents each at redemption centers. Beverage producers are then responsible for picking up materials from the centers and paying the deposit plus a 3.5 cent handling fee. The system requires producers, many of which are multinational corporations, to take responsibility for the plastic and aluminum waste they create: they must pay the handling fee, cover all the logistics involved in pick up and recycling, and absorb the fluctuating costs of materials on recycling markets.

Although the EPR system enables recycling as a way to generate earnings, the deposit amount has not been updated in over 40 years - meaning recyclers are being paid as much per bottle or can as they were in the 1980’s. Also, without an update to the handling fee, many redemption centers are on the brink of closure, which they have warned could cause the system to collapse.

How have private interests acted as drivers of exclusion for workers in informal employment, and how are workers pushing back?

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have historically led the fight against comprehensive vending reform. In addition to putting intense pressure on public officials to reject proposals for increasing permits, BIDs have also been known to directly obstruct vendors by placing obstacles in public space. Even outside of BIDs, property owners have been known to harass vendors through intimidation and surveillance, often falsely claiming spaces to be “no vending zones.” In this sense, street vendor scholar Ryan Devlin argues, the realities of vending dynamics on the streets are more a function of the power and influence of these private actors, as they are a function of any official rules and regulations.

Street vendors understand that until there is big structural reform of the regulatory system, these informal power plays will continue to shape their working conditions. As a result, the Street Vendor Project and allies are now pushing for the complete lifting of the cap on permits, and for decriminalization of their work – removing any punitive sanctions.

For big beverage producers, every bottle or can redeemed under the current system represents a loss. As a result, they have been lobbying against reform of the Bottle Bill (the EPR framework that establishes the deposit and handling fee) since it was introduced. Over the past few years, organized recyclers joined hands with environmental activists and redemption center small business owners to demand reform of the system before it collapses – doubling the bottle deposit for recyclers and the handling fee for redemption centers. The campaign was effective in pushing the draft legislation as far as it has ever gotten – to the state senate floor, where it was ultimately defeated in June 2024, for now.

The barriers facing street vendors and independent recyclers in their struggles for reform are immense. They are up against some of the most powerful private interests in existence – multinational corporations, real estate interests, property and business owners – in one of the most lucrative cities on the planet. These actors perceive workers in informal employment to be undermining their interests and hurting their bottom line, and have shown they are willing to go to great lengths to prevent reform. In a pattern that plays out across cities of the global north and south, we see the state tending to capitulate to these interests, delaying legislative action, reproducing big business talking points, and adopting discriminatory policing practices to block access to public space and public goods.

Workers in informal employment in NYC are immigrants, veterans and people who are systemically excluded from the labor market. In the city that most iconically represents modern capitalism, they are a reminder of the injustices of that system. And in their work to keep corporations accountable for the waste they produce, and to provide affordable goods and services to working class people, they are actively demonstrating an alternative to the status quo model of city-making that favours a few elite interests to the detriment of the majority. Despite setbacks in their respective struggles for reform, they are already having a positive environmental, economic and cultural impact through their work. Policymakers would do well to follow their lead: recognizing the value of their work and engaging them in discussions around how to enhance their existing contributions to the city.

This piece draws on collective work from scholars and activists working on informal economy issues in NYC: Jenna Harvey, Christine Hegel, Ryan Devlin and Chris Hartmann.