A worker's persistent mopping can't smother the cheap-beer smell. The air is so cold that the Rockies on an empty Coors Light are blue.
Two men feed the machines, mechanically, trying to turn can and bottle deposits into dollars this March morning in a Hartford supermarket's recycling room.
Abruptly, a burst of winter. Automatic doors slide open for Mary Simon of West Hartford, pushing a shopping cart carrying 50 beer bottles in three value-size boxes. "I don't drink these," she says, politely. "They're from a friend."
Reprinted with permission of the Hartford Courant.
To view other stories on this topic, search the Hartford Courant Archives at
http://www.courant.com/archives.