Recycling as Supplemental Income
Channel: abanthro
Date: 2012-05-23

I directed, produced, and edited Recycling as Supplemental Income, a short social documentary that follows the distinct perspective of the narrator, Ted, an unloader, on recycling. I enter Alliance Metal's Recycling Center in Emeryville CA to visually represent the mental tensions and physical maneuvering that people like Ted grapple with in this niche economy. The film's implicit visual and audio narrative argues that grime, the hard industrial sounds, and the compacted used recycled containers does not represent the people like Ted who work in these informal economies, yet wrestles with the stigmas these people may hold. Ted's experience helps unravel this social trouble space to the viewer, and brings legitimacy to this type of supplemental income work from the field.

All of the footage was shot by Hawk Beatz.