The Can Cart-Pusher's Mecca

By Ryan Meehan


DORCHESTER – The clamor of glass bottles clanking, cans crunching, and the hollow sound of plastic bottles hitting the floor echo in the damp garage that is Dorchester Bottle and Can as customers usher in and out of the open door. An unkempt man downs the remainder of his King Cobra 40-ounce malt liquor beverage before handing it over along with three transparent garbage bags of Budweiser cans.

Dorchester Bottle and Can, 1278 Dorchester Ave., acts as an intermediary between collectors and beverage distributors, providing cash on the spot to those who want to deposit recyclables.
Redemption center manager, Lee Nguyen, 43, a Vietnamese refugee who came to Dorchester 22 years ago, has been working around the smell of sour beer, sorting bottles and cans on the sticky garage floor for 10 years.

“It’s hard work because you have to remember everything,” said Nguyen, gesturing to the individual boxes and 15-foot piles of bulging trash bags surrounding him.

Nguyen and about four other employees sort through each bag brought in and place the bottles and cans into different garbage bag-filled boxes by size and brand. There are 120 20-fluid ounce plastic bottles, 40 two-liter plastic bottles, 240 cans and 24 glass bottles are bundled, tied and tossed aside until their corresponding distributor comes to pick them up.

Beverage distribution companies pay Dorchester Bottle and Can 7 cents for each bottle or can, which, in turn, pays customers 5 cents per bottle or can. Nguyen said the companies, which include Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, come three times a week to pick up only the products their company manufactured.

Customers range from homeless men to businessmen.

“I come here once a week and I make $30 a week on average,” said Joseph Smith, 36, an immigrant from Barbados who moved to Dorchester five years ago.

Smith said collecting bottles and cans from the areas of Uphams Corner and Stoughton is his only source of income because he cannot get a job.

Nguyen said there are many regular customers he trusts to tell him the correct number of cans without having to count.

“We look forward to summer,” said Nguyen, noting that business is usually slow in the winter.