In the push to divert more waste from landfills, people known as binners — who scour cities for often discarded redeemable materials — could hold part of the solution.

Collecting cans or bottles for their 10 cent deposit keeps waste from ending up in the wrong place and provides wages for those who return them.

Now, waste pickers or binners say the important work they do should be afforded a bigger role.

“I think there's room to innovate and to grow … to find other items that could be collected and taken out of the landfill,” said Sean Miles, director of the Binners' Project , a collective of waste pickers in Vancouver trying to improve economic opportunities and reduce stigma over the practice.

Miles made the comments from an annual Vancouver event where, through government grants a

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