Warren Zipperer has become a familiar sight in the inner suburbs of Cairns in the two years since he started digging through bins for bottles and cans.
The former panelbeater and spray-painter sets out most days on his trusty tricycle to search for containers to cash in for 10c refunds.
It's tough work – and only legally allowed if a bin owner's consent is given – but it helps him earn a crust after a spinal injury made it impossible to ply his trade.
When he really commits, Mr Zipperer says he pulls in up to $200 a week.
"Being on [JobSeeker] sort of sucks, and it just helps pay for extras like my ute, fuel and so on ... so I can have a bit better lifestyle than just sitting on my arse all the time," he said.
"I started at the top of Murray Street … then it just got more and more.
"It's like you get something in your blood and you just keep doing it."
Hard, dirty work in the Cairns heat
Mr Zipperer lifted the back of his shirt to reveal a pinkish four-inch scar running up his lower spine like an oversized football seam.
"Sometimes I can't get out because of how I feel physically and mentally," he said.
"It's taken a toll on me, it really has."
He said he went from owning a business that reeled in $2,000 a week to living in a pensioner's cottage.
"I struggle to do this, but I do it because I lost my business from being misdiagnosed," he said.
"I've had back surgery, plus I've got to go back and have more surgery.
"I had a business in Atherton, it was called Zippy's Car Care for 12 years.
"Sometimes I wish I had a dole bludger's back, because that way I could have my business back."
It's dirty work, and it takes a strong stomach to handle some of the aromas on a warm Cairns day.
Every now and then, Mr Zipperer finds a half-drunk bottle of water and uses the leftover liquid to give his hands a perfunctory rinse.
Bin diving rivalry
Mr Zipperer is not the only person rifling through the yellow-lidded bins in this part of town.
He said there was an art to timing collection-day digs before someone else had already hit the jackpot.
His best strike rate is at apartment buildings.
"There's a lot of competition," he said.
His difficulty in making ends meet on JobSeeker – set at a maximum payment of $693.10 a fortnight for a single person with no dependents – is not an uncommon story either.
Centacare FNQ executive director Anita Veivers said demand for emergency relief was on the rise as residents struggled to afford accommodation.
"It's definitely tough out there," Ms Veivers said.
"We've still got a lot of people looking for work and we know employers are desperate for staff, but there's a bit of a skills gap.
"We have a lot of people that just need a little extra support to go from unemployed to employed."
Centrelink payments such as JobSeeker were set to increase by 3.7 per cent this month due to routine indexation in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
However, the Australian Council of Social Services has been calling for a "real" increase from about $50 a day to $73, to bring it in line with the pension.
Bin diving and the law
Although not uncommon, kerbside can collecting is not without legal issues.
Entering someone's property to dig through their bin without consent can amount to trespass, and even bins that have been wheeled out to the gutter on collection day can pose problems.
A Cairns Regional Council spokesperson said kerbside bins were council property and "should not be tampered with by residents in any way" as per the Queensland Environmental Protection Regulation 2008.
"Council does not condone residents sorting through neighbouring bin contents as it poses a personal safety risk relating to items such as hypodermic needles, hazardous chemicals and glass that may be present along with littering or other nuisance issues this may cause," the spokesperson said.
Cairns is not the only jurisdiction where bin-diving container recyclers are prevalent.
Bin divers caused a stir in New South Wales in 2019.
At the time, the state's Environmental Protection Authority chief Mark Gifford said the contents of bins on the kerbside were the property of local councils.
"When the bins are on the street, that's council property and council gets that 10c refund, and that's important for them to be able to collect that," he said.
Copping criticism
Mr Zipperer said he only ever took cans and bottles from kerbside bins.
"If your bin is in your yard, I won’t touch it," he said.
He said people were generally accepting of his presence, but he did face occasional admonishment.
"You get the odd one that don't like it because of all the other stuff that goes on – people [going through their letterboxes and] stealing identities and that," he said.
"I'm not in for that, I just want them to make money, and that's all I've done.
"If people are in their yards, I ask them if I can go through their recycle bin.
"And then they say, 'Oh, I'll leave this behind here next time you come through to pick it up'.
"People like that — I think they're awesome."
