Help wanted: Spend every daylight hour rummaging through dumpsters, garbage cans, and roadside rubbish in search of sticky plastic bottles and putrid aluminum cans. Compensation: $9, maybe 10 bucks (if you're lucky).

If you think "professional recycling" sounds tiring, dead-end, and downright nasty, you're right. Although John says it's “good honest work,” he admits he'd gladly jump to a minimum wage job if given the opportunity. See, John used to be just like you, he never thought he'd become a homeless. But thanks to our economic nosedive, John went from being a small business owner to a homeless can collector.

If you hear nothing else today, please listen to John’s closing thoughts.