Scrappers

[Char*Pntr]

Originally Posted by monster

Yebbut would the time it would it have taken to feed them into the machines be worth the extra $$? and were they all machine-feedable? MI has the highest deposit in the states (10c), but it's a total pain in the ass that you can't crush them befoe you recycle them.

This brought up some memories. When I was a kid people used to leave their empty 7up and RC cola bottles on their front porch.

We would walk by, and when I saw the small green 7up bottle, I always thought, oh shoot that one is only 3 cents when I turn it in at any store. But when there was an empty RC cola bottle, oh boy I struck pay dirt! That sucker was worth 5 cents, which translates to, I could buy any candy bar I wanted!

A shocking (to me) side note on recycling: This story was in the evening news a few months ago. Thieves cutting into chain linked fence (with barbed wire!) and stealing pallots of crushed (used) CARDBOARD.

I was thinking, omg. It turns out that even used cardboard, when stolen at pallets/tons at a time is profitable to even a thief.

On a much sadder note on recycling, I bought a new house here almost 2 years ago. The project here was built in 2005, and I live in the last house where the farm land starts. Across my street on the other side is all farmland separating our homes via a river. Well a few months ago, I noticed all of our street lights stopped working. And we're talking about over a quarter mile of street lights, starting at my house down to the other homes- flanking the river.

When I took my dog for a walk, I noticed copper wire sticking out of the various manhole covers. I thought, wow (I was an Electrician) if I left my work site with these sloppy conditions at work, I would have been fired.

But nope. It turned out, that someone drove by in the dead of night, cut out the wires (high voltage) and stole all of the copper to sell it.

So it cost my city, who had to lay off police and fire officers because of the recession, $35,000 US dollars to repair this. And the copper was probably sold for less that $250.00 scrap. This has also been a problem in nearby cities where I live.

Just in case I've gone off topic, I used to put my aluminum cans into our recycling bin for pickup. My wife immediately put an end to that, and yells at me if she catches me doing that. So she has a large bag in the garage, I crush the can and put it in. Every so often, she recycles them and gets probably $15 - $20 cash. I never asked her what she does with the extra dough, but I figure she deserves it. :-)

Edit: Correction. The distance of the street lights is well over a mile. What made me think of this error, well, my dog just put his paw on my knee. That means he has to go out and we're covering the same walk. (the last time my dog put his paw on my knee, and gave that stupid look, and I ignored him - well he made a mess on our carpet later that night. And my wife blamed me - can you imagine that?!