Castalia

Its executive director, Ryan Castalia, testified at a joint legislative hearing.

Castalia first discovered Sure We Can not as a canner, but as a performer, when his experimental theater company put on a show in cleared-out warehouse space there.

Castalia tells anyone who will listen how much the bill in Albany could change canners’ lives.

“Canners on average earn around $5 an hour, a third of the minimum wage,” Castalia said in his office, speaking over the clinking of bottles outside as canners sorted recyclables.

The division of responsibilities between Sure We Can and the Alliance is still “an open question to some degree, or at least a developing one,” Castalia said.