Talk:Canner (occupation)

Requested move 22 October 2024

Canner (occupation) → Canner (waste picking) – It could easily be confused with a worker at a cannery, making "occupation" an incomplete disambiguation. That, and it's debatable whether it really is an occupation at all, as it is typically considered theft of city property (trash that has already been discarded belongs to the city). I'm sure burglars also consider their work an occupation, but most don't, so I don't think that is the right word. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

• Move to Canning (waste picking), or similar. This is indeed ambiguous, but the title should be the activity itself, not its participants. Make Canner a disambiguation page listing this article and Cannery. Redirect Canner (occupation) to the disambiguation page. 162 etc. (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  I have created the DAB page since successful move of this article isn't required to do so. For the record, I think Canner (occupation) should redirect to cannery rather than the DAB page. Working at a cannery is absolutely an occupation, but picking some things from the trash, regardless of how regularly you do it, is not. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 21:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support or alt1 above or Canner (recycling), for improved clarity. Not necessarily echoing the theft commentary or non-occupation assertion, which probably varies substantially by jurisdiction and is subject to discretionary enforcement and societal tolerance. That may be a matter for incorporating additional information into the article rather than for determining its title. At the moment, the article does not seem to discuss whether the activity is legal or not or whether people consider it to be theft. I suspect most people don't really consider it theft, although they may consider it problematic in other ways and might use the theft argument as a way to discourage it. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  It depends on the place, but as reported here, many cities have enacted anti-scavenging laws. Taking recyclables from the curb is considered stealing and, at least for New York, costs the city tens of millions yearly as they are paying for the wasted time of sanitation workers. So it's far from a personal opinion, though I admit it may possibly be situational. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 21:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  "Considered stealing" – by whom? Probably not really by most people, but calling it stealing is a tactic sometimes used to discourage it – or to discourage the presence of the people who do it. It's not that the content of the trash cans is especially valuable, and removing redeemable items from the trash does not, by itself, waste sanitation workers' time. It only wastes sanitation workers' time if it's done in a sloppy way (which it probably typically is, but that's not fundamental to the practice). The article that you referenced says "passersby on foot are allowed to take stuff from the curb, according to the city's Department of Sanitation". The motivation described for the University of Colorado Denver was not the preciousness of the material. The one value identified in that article was for bulk recyclable cardboard collected in NYC by "organized rings", which is not what this Wikipedia article is about. In contrast, this article is about "the collection and redemption of deposit-marked beverage containers". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)