Custom-made carts for bottle pickers coming to Vancouver this spring

Davin Boutang is pushinga bright green cart through the urine-soaked alleys of Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood, looking for refundable cans and bottles.

The cart hasbeen custom-designed for people like himso-called "binners."

"The challenges I have with binning is, of course, the bad days where I don't find that much,"Boutang, 42, said.

"The other challenge is finding a shopping cart."

TheBinners' Project, a non-profit organization that supports people likeBoutang, says its members have been asking for better access to carts since the organization was founded in 2014.

Boutang's green cart is the prototype of a pilot project.The organization is currently gathering feedback from its members and hopes to have 20 to 30 of themavailable by spring.

Watch Boutangdemonstrate his customized cart:

Test drive the prototype cart designed to make recycling easier for binners

6 years ago

Duration 1:02

Binner Davin Boutang describes the features of the new cart.

Binners useshopping carts to return bottles and cans to a depot. But shopping carts aren't meant for street life they're noisyand they often break down.

They also aren't supposed to leave the grocery store parking lot.Some industry experts estimatethe costs for stolen and lost shopping carts to be about $15,000 per store, per year on average.

The City of Vancouver says it found 522 abandoned shopping carts last year. It says about 75 per cent are returned to the stores, while the remaining 25 per cent are too damaged.

The BinnerProject carts are meant to help people like Boutangdo their work. The organization also hopes the customized carts willlend more dignity to the binners' daily routines.

"I'm hoping that having one universal cart where everyone knows that this represents a living and a service that we're providing for the city," Boutangsaid.

"It actually makes me feel like a valued member of society again."

Binning an important service

Encorp, theorganization that leads the B.C. beverage recycling program, is one of severalfundersfor the customized carts.

It says professional bottle pickersplay a large part in increasing the return rate in large urban centres although it doesn't keep statistics on who returns containers.

• B.C. recycled 1 billion drink containers last year and it wants more

Other sponsors include the City of Vancouver, which contributed $75,000 last fall,VancityCredit Union, and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.

Grocery storesSobeysand Save on Foods have also contributed.

TheBinners'Projectestimates the carts will cost about $600 to $800 per unit. Regular, mass produced carts cost about $200 a piece, but the organization says the price for these is higher because of the custom design and the relatively small batch.

United We Can, a non-profit recycling depot that also supportsbinners, tried piloting a cart program four years ago. But board memberBingSmith says the project ultimately failed because the carts were smaller than regular shopping carts and not sturdy enough for the streets.

Docking stations a major challenge

One major cost and challenge for the projectwill be the docking stations where the carts will be kept, like a bike share program.

Binnersdon't often have access to traditional means of securing a deposit, like credit cards or even cell phones.

For now, the Binners' Project is planning to provide access to the docking stations to100 or so trustedbinnersthat it regularly works with. Giving otherbinnersaccess in the long-term is still in the works.

Boutang is one of the people testing the prototype. So far it has saved him a lot a time.

He used to keep hisown carts, but theywere often stolen. If he's not using the prototype, he walks 30 minutes to a recycling depotto look forcarts left behind by other binners.

On average, Boutangmakes anywhere between $20 and $60 dollars a day as a binner. Having a cart, especially one he could attach to a bike, helps him increase his earnings.

"One of the things people should know aboutbinnersis we're all human beings ... that are trying to make a living,"Boutangsaid.

"We're quite proud to bebinnersin Vancouver."