This is honestly sad, pathetic, and nothing to be proud of. There's no chance at moving up doing this line of work and depends entirely on the state continuing a recycling program that pays less and less as inflation rises. You put yourself at risk by competing with homeless for these cans. Any time you're not working you lose out on profit and that can happen just from getting sick or injured.

There's so many better jobs out there. My own immigrant parents started from doing service jobs in the food industry, driving, and kitchen work. They ended up doing all sorts of other jobs over the years but now own four properties with two fully paid off. This article isn't a success story, it's a story of failure.