4 ms·

As a kid, I earned a considerable amount of money (sometimes $5+ per day) riding my bike around and collecting cans and bottles during the summer. Those bought

by meritt 8y ago

As a kid, I earned a considerable amount of money (sometimes $5+ per day) riding my bike around and collecting cans and bottles during the summer. Those bought me a lot of MTG cards and layaway payments on the latest SNES game. Now I just set them alongside the recycling bin for the homeless as well. I feel like the neighborhood kids are really missing out on a lucrative opportunity.

matthoiland 8y ago
You make look silly with two giant garbage bags hanging off your bike, but at the end of the day who's holding on to 20 bucks? It felt like a fortune back then, and was an honest hard days work.
- freehunter 8y ago
  >It felt like a fortune back then That's the biggest problem for me. It was a fortune back then. My family would collect bottles all year and cash them in for a vacation. But back then it was 10c per bottle... 30 years ago. Today, it's still 10c per bottle. With inflation, that's more like 5c per bottle. Couple that with the rise in bottled water and other non-carbonated drinks that don't have deposit on them plus a lot of store brands and specialty bottles that require you to go to multiple stores to return, a whole day of collecting bottles might only net you $5. And then you have to spend another day going back and forth between Family Fare, Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, Target, and maybe even a specialty bottle store. Even for kids, a lot of times it's not worth it for just a few bucks.
- megy 8y ago
  With cans, you could crush them, so they took up only a small amount of room.
Symbiote 8y ago
In Copenhagen, many of the public litter bins have a small shelf for donating bottles. I will hold on to a bottle for longer to put it on one of these shelves, rather than in (or beside) the bin. Picture: https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/07/KBHPant-Copenhagen.jpg.653x0_q80_crop-smart.jpg https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/07/KBHPant-Copenhag... ("pant" is cognate with "pawn".)

by meritt 8y ago

matthoiland 8y ago

You make look silly with two giant garbage bags hanging off your bike, but at the end of the day who's holding on to 20 bucks? It felt like a fortune back then, and was an honest hard days work.

freehunter 8y ago
>It felt like a fortune back then That's the biggest problem for me. It was a fortune back then. My family would collect bottles all year and cash them in for a vacation. But back then it was 10c per bottle... 30 years ago. Today, it's still 10c per bottle. With inflation, that's more like 5c per bottle. Couple that with the rise in bottled water and other non-carbonated drinks that don't have deposit on them plus a lot of store brands and specialty bottles that require you to go to multiple stores to return, a whole day of collecting bottles might only net you $5. And then you have to spend another day going back and forth between Family Fare, Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, Target, and maybe even a specialty bottle store. Even for kids, a lot of times it's not worth it for just a few bucks.
megy 8y ago
With cans, you could crush them, so they took up only a small amount of room.

Symbiote 8y ago

In Copenhagen, many of the public litter bins have a small shelf for donating bottles. I will hold on to a bottle for longer to put it on one of these shelves, rather than in (or beside) the bin. Picture: https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/07/KBHPant-Copenhagen.jpg.653x0_q80_crop-smart.jpg https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/07/KBHPant-Copenhag... ("pant" is cognate with "pawn".)