The old and the destitute

Once you start looking for them in Berlin, you realise how many there actually are: older people who rummage around in public trash looking for plastic or glass bottles. If the bottle has a recycling symbol printed on it, you can get anything from 5-25 eurocents when you return it to the grocery store.

- Cathrin Schaer

Some of those older folk look miserable, dirty, possibly homeless, and they mumble weird nothings as they stretch a horrifyingly bare hand into the dark, smelly maw of a city council bin. God only knows what's in there.

Others are more organised and you often won't even notice them. They wear gloves, carry a flashlight and look like somebody's suburban grandparent out on a walk. They work methodically, pointing their flashlights into each of the bins on, say, a railway platform before moving on to the next receptacles.

This variety of aged bottle collector often seems to have timed their mission carefully. They're frequently out in the early morning, presumably to get bottles discarded by young drinkers overnight.