Eric's Heroes: Wyatt Collins, a recycling center's newest star, finds joy in the job - KOMO News

Eric's Heroes: Wyatt Collins, a recycling center's newest star, finds joy in the job | KOMO

A little more than a year ago, we introduced you to a lovely guy named Wyatt Collins.

In the story, we told you about how he was born three months prematurely, how he battled infections, and then leukemia, and how he was later diagnosed with autism.

His parents, Jon and Cathy, explained to us why it is that Wyatt has a hard time speaking.

"There's a lot locked up inside there... that we're trying to get out," Jon said.

"It's hard sometimes because you see he wants to talk," Cathy added. "It's just right there, he wants to get it out, he just can't."

And the thing about Wyatt is that he is obsessed with recycling. He likes the orderliness of it. He loves recycling so much that he has his own recycling center set up behind the house.

When we first brought you his story, the thing he loved most was going with his parents every week to the Hidden Valley Recycling Center, where he would unload his recycling and take it to his friends at the center to be recycled.

He became a bit of a celebrity there, and one of the friends he made was a guy named Andy Ziadey.

As it turns out, Andy went to his bosses and made a request. That request ultimately led to Wyatt being offered a job at the Hidden Valley Recycling Center. A real job.

It has become, for Wyatt, a dream job.

So now, every Saturday, Wyatt puts on his reflective jacket, his hat and his gloves. He grabs his water bottle that says "Wyatt, Recycle Man" and he heads to work.

When his mom drops him off, Andy is waiting at the entrance.

"Good morning, Wyatt. How are you? Doing good?"

Something happens to Wyatt at the recycling center. He's suddenly confident and self-assured. He knows where everything is, he knows exactly what he's doing. He stands up straighter and his chest sticks out a little farther.

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After he dumps some cardboard on a conveyor belt, he swings a plastic bin back and forth as he walks.

Andy says to him, "You're getting fancy, aren't you?"

He works just two hours each Saturday: 9:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

It's enough to look forward to. Enough to be proud of.

"Oh, he’s still my buddy, he’s all of our buddy," Andy says. "We all love him. We all love Wyatt."

When someone pulls up to get rid of their recycling, Wyatt goes out with a cart to greet them. Sometimes Andy goes, too, and says, "My buddy Wyatt is going to help you out this morning, OK?"

Wyatt then takes the cart, full of cans or metal or cardboard or plastic, and puts each of them where they're supposed to go.

When he's especially pleased with himself, he does a flex pose with both arms.

At his home I asked Wyatt if he was happy to work there.

Wyatt repeated quietly, "Happy to work there."

"You are?" I asked. "That makes you happy there?"

Wyatt whispered, "Happy there."

Andy loves talking about his friend.

"Have you actually talked to him, seen that smile?" he said. "That’s Wyatt. Happy go lucky all the time. I’ve never seen that kid in a bad mood, at all."

Tom Lester also works at Hidden Valley. He says, "Someone who loves their job, you see that and it improves your mood as well, and that’s what it does to me."

And Mark Lewis says that if you're not careful, Wyatt will gobble up all the carts and leave no work for anyone else.

"Well, he makes it easier for us because he wants to grab every cart!"

At Andy's urging the other day, Wyatt walked up to Mark and said in that quiet, deadpan way of his: "Get to work."

Mark burst out laughing. "Get to work? What?"

Cathy told me, "I always say that Wyatt has angels that were sent to him for all he's been through in his life, little angels on earth."

Then, referring to the team at the recycling center, she said, "They... they are some of his angels that he's been blessed with."

Wyatt dumps a bunch of cardboard onto a conveyor belt. He pushes the cart back toward the front of the center, stopping long enough to flex his muscles.

Andy is waiting for him. "Good job," he says. "Good job, buddy."