We see them all the time: at the back of the bus, surrounded by overstuffed plastic bags and attempting to make conversation with a confused looking twenty-something; battling off raccoons for hidden scores of pop cans in UBC garbage bins; or lying in the sun outside the VAG, smoking the day's butt collection, often looking more at peace than the bustling city which surrounds them. That's right, I speak of our city's visible but enigmatic community of unemployed bottle collectors, a group who find themselves the subject of a hot local documentary which screens at VIFC tonight and Thursday.

Spending a lot of the day either searching for plastic or hauling bags around town, surviving off recycling takes a lot of strength, stamina, and - if they're available - auxiliary can-carrying devices, i.e, shopping carts. Murray Siple's Carts of Darkness follows a group of North Van 'binners' who use their shopping carts as more than mere business-aids; turning them into something like scooters crossed with street luges, cruising and racing down North Vancouver hills at 60kph. The extreme-sport escapism is almost as fascinating as the story of the men themselves, a bracket of Vancouver society often glimpsed but rarely seen.

More on this exciting doc, as well as a trailer, after the jump...

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