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My parents collect cans for a living

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Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#231

Post by robga »

kstenerud wrote: post #27

My family used to do this all the time when we were kids. We'd go along the ditches on the side of the road and make a family outing of it on weekends. At the beach my brother and I would drag big plastic garbage bags around and collect as much as we could from people who were happy to help some kids out and also happy to be rid of the bottles and cans. You could make some decent coin at it, but that was also in the…

I read this with a smile. Collecting cans was my first money making venture as a 10yo, 80% of my life ago. ~1c/can (recycle value, no deposit), about $10/wk just cleaning up at 2 neighbourhood schools. I remember making my own 'can crushers' with a 2x4 and a brick. There was no shame in it, I felt much pride at that cash-in. The sickly sweet smell and soft clatter as the bag contents turned from aluminium to cash stays with me today.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#232

Post by rob74 »

berkes wrote: post #135
oaiey wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel about that though… It becomes a respectful cooperation. When you party in a park, you place your containers next to a trash so a homeless can pick it up without searching the trash. They basically help you partying hard (and not caring/carrying about the bottles) and earn (by hard work) a bit of money.

In Germany -at least the cities I'm familiar with- everyone places their cans and bottles next to the trash-can. German bottles often have "pfand gehört daneben" (Deposits belong next to it) printed on them[0]. And some cities even placed special holders alongside the trashcans[1]. Like with many things, Germans have made deposit collection into an efficient job. [0] https://kaiserkiwi.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/f…

Yeah, most people are considerate enough to either take their bottles with them or put them somewhere where they can be collected easily, as you wrote. And, even if beer bottles only have 8 cents deposit, are heavy, stinky and the remaining beer may run out, they do get collected sometimes. But, to avoid the impression that in Germany everything works perfectly, I should also mention the (maybe fewer) others, who don't care about the 8 cents and simply smash the bottles on the sidewalk for "fun". As a cyclist, I have a special love for this second category...

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#233

Post by pessimizer »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #174
rbanffy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jessia is the American dream. She's the one who made it, unlike thousands of others, who worked equally hard, and didn't. No family should have both parents working 12 hours a day just to survive, period.

Who gets to define "made it"? Did the electrician or garbage truck driver who's parents came from just as much not also make it? Why is it implied in so many comments around here that anyone who didn't go to college and get a white collar job pushing papers/code/spreadsheets didn't make it?

You're the one who, when trying to come up with examples of people who other people would think haven't made it, came up with electricians and garbage truck drivers.

What are you arguing here? That all people are equally comfortable and all jobs are equally good, and that implying that suffering is bad is demeaning to the people who suffer? It's like upside-down wokeness. While some people are arguing to put in wheelchair ramps, this is like instead insisting that implying that wheelchair users can't walk as well as everyone else is prejudiced.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#234

Post by dahfizz »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #88
rladd wrote: post #53

This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a living wage.

Here in Norway a half litre or smaller container has a deposit of 2 kr, bigger containers are 3 kr (22 and 33 US cent respectively). But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it. Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return even if they were not purchased in that shop and even if they are of a different…

I live in the US, and all grocery stores I have been to have those reverse vending machines.

I also never bother to return my bottles and cans, because it's still a waste of my time. I put all bottles and cans in the recycling, along with anything else recyclable (on the backend, almost everything goes to a landfill anyway. But that's not my problem.)

Edit: for those asking, I have lived in multiple New England states, and bottle return machines have been common in all of them.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#235

Post by spaceflunky »

TomAbel wrote: post #64

Here is a story of a man who collected cans and bottles for cash and invested the money he got in the stock market, he died a millionaire. "Curt Degerman, known to many as "Tin Can Curt," Degerman spent nearly 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden collecting tin cans and bottles for cash. Those who passed him by simply assumed he was another ordinary street bum. But to the surpise of many, whe…

I remember reading some version of the story where he figured out what companies were on the rise by going through peoples trash. Like he would make note of what people were actually buying so he had an inside track.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#236

Post by pessimizer »

jimbokun wrote: post #215
throw8932894 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> I would not call that "make it". Maybe once they own couple of houses or business. You sound exactly like the snobby kids in the story, judging who can be proud of "making it" and who can't. Anyone who doesn't own a couple houses or business should feel ashamed for not "making it".

Why attend college at all? By going to college, she's implying that people who haven't gone to college don't have exactly the same opportunities and security as anyone else. She's the real snob.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#237

Post by MandieD »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #120
oaiey wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not everyone needs to do a reverse vending machine. Just hand them back to the cashier and he returns you money. Goes that far that when a restaurant sells a full bottle they need to take it back. We have this system also in Germany since the late 80s (I think) and it works very well. Current incentive ranges from 8ct (beer glass bottles ... beer lobby always has exceptions ;)) to 25ct (plastic bottles)

Do the bottles need to be full size, or do they accept crushed ones?

The lightweight plastic ones are "Einweg" ("single use"), and the deposit is to get the material back for recycling - as long as the deposit label will scan, it's accepted. It's easier to scan them in the automats if they're not crushed; my German husband does not seem to have fully internalized this, so I reinflate them when they get rejected.

Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use"), and they actually want a bottle to sterilize and reuse (preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles), so if it's broken, it's technically trash and should go in the Altglas (old glass) containers you see at least once in every city neighborhood.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#238

Post by umvi »

rladd wrote: post #53

This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a living wage.

> This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a living wage

It's not just inflation you have to keep up with but also falling material costs as aluminum is more mass produced, etc.

Where does the money come from for the refunds? Without government subsidies I don't think it would make economic sense for a recycling center to pay $.50 or even $.25 per can if the amount of aluminum scrap is only worth $.10

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#240

Post by geerlingguy »

dahfizz wrote: post #234
kwhitefoot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway a half litre or smaller container has a deposit of 2 kr, bigger containers are 3 kr (22 and 33 US cent respectively). But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it. Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return even if they were not purchased in that shop and even if they are of a different…

I live in the US, and all grocery stores I have been to have those reverse vending machines. I also never bother to return my bottles and cans, because it's still a waste of my time. I put all bottles and cans in the recycling, along with anything else recyclable (on the backend, almost everything goes to a landfill anyway. But that's not my problem.) Edit: for those asking, I have lived in multiple New England state…

I'm in the Midwest, USA, never seen such a reverse vending machine...
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