Bag of Cans

Tomorrow is when I put out the trash for pickup on Thursday and I have another bag of cans and bottles ready to go out on the street and get collected by someone in need.

It has been nearly three years since I took any cans or bottles back for their five cent redemption. Over the years I would collect bags of cans and bottles in the basement and then take them over to Consumer Beverages to recycle them for cash and I would see Sean working there. Then Sean stopped working there in January 2020, moved across the state and took his new job. In the meantime my cans piled up in the basement.

Then by March the covid pandemic had a grip on the country and we stopped going to stores unnecessarily. I has already stopped going to Consumer Beverages to take back cans but hadn't taken any to a supermarket returns desk or machine outside the building. I started leaving the cans and bottles in paper bags on the sidewalk next to our trash containers and they would be picked up by people going through the neighborhood collecting redeemable bottles and cans. 

To Becky and me it just wasn't worth it anymore to redeem the cans ourselves during the pandemic. It was just so much easier to just put them out there for someone to have that needed that extra cash. There have always been people scouring the neighborhood for cans and bottles on trash day and they would go up and down the street looking into recycle containers. I made it real easy for them by putting them in separate bags in an obvious spot they could see as they came down the street. I talked to one woman who came by every week and she was very grateful for my bag of cans which she said made a difference for her putting food on the table for her family.

Every week now for almost three years I've been putting those bags out on the sidewalk. Becky and I drink a lot of soda water cans plus my beer cans and bottles. I usually have enough for one bag each week. I think I've only missed a few weeks here and there when there was a lot of rain or snow. Otherwise if we are home then I put out those cans and bottles. I really don't think I will ever redeem cans and bottles again.