"Canning" means putting up fruit and vegetables in cans or jars for preservation purposes. We already have a word for taking redeemable cans and bottles and cashing them them. It's called "stealing".

I'm sure it's a fascinating subculture for a documentary film or story or article, as is the Mafia or Gypsies or say pickpockets in London for Dickens. But none of them call for the warm and fuzzy uncritical approach heard (as ususal) on WNYC.

Taking redeemable cans and bottles is not a job. It is stealing. Should a modern society provide ways for people to exist? Yes. Stealing is not a viable means. If someone can spend 4 plus hours a day stealing cans and bottles, they can do something productive. It is irresponsible for WNYC to look at this issue through their usual rose tinted glasses.

The deposit/redemption system does not work in urban areas. In the suburbs, people have room to store recyclables and simply occasionally toss them in the back of the car and take them in when they are going to the supermarket. There they will find a clean, nicely lit, heated or air conditioned room at with clean, operating machines ready to take their cans and bottles and return a receipt for the 5 cents each they were charged when purchasing.

In urban areas, people most often walk to the store. Even if they drive, they will find a dirty often outdoor area with often full or nonfunctioning redemption machines. The functioning machines will no doubt have people lined up monopolising the machines, redeeming stolen cans and bottles from bags containing hundreds. So everyone knows you just have to forget about it and put the cans and bottles in your recycling can. From where people steal all the deposit cans and bottles.

Even taking cans and bottles from a public can is stealing from the rest of us. The stolen cans and bottles reduce the amount the recycling company gets and increases our taxes and garbage fees.

Urban areas should put out recycling cans that can't be pilfered from wherever there are garbage cans, like the ones at the Staten Island Ferry terminal. All commercial and residential buildings of all sizes should be required to provide something like that as well. People attempting to steal the cans and bottles should be cited.

But more fundamentally the whole program should be rethought and reconfigured to make it work.

Sobering. When I see people moving carts full of bottles and cans, I find myself thinking of ragpickers — the people at the very bottom of the economic ladder in 19th century London and New York. They literally picked over the rags discarded by others.

Did they distribute their film to Canns?

Is canning legal? I thought it was illegal to take cans and bottles from residents' recycling containers. I've noticed a good amount of caution on the part of those who do it.