Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Birthday, little boy

Max turned one this past Wednesday. We had a big family barbecue, with friends, and a bouncer (the kind you jump on, not the kind who throws you out for getting too rowdy.)

Well, of course, there were cans of soda and 2 liters, and juice bottles to return, so that set us up with a whopping $2.90. And once again, the husband's office placed their coke bottles and water bottles in their recycling box, which gave us $1.70. So, another $4.60, or 92 bottles to our total. We're up to 775 "nickles" now. $38.75 total. Whoo hoo!

The Pug Recycles





I wish I could train my dog to do this.
HAPPY EARTH DAY

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

How CAN you help?

Well, dear reader, you might be saying, "How do you expect to find five million cans in a year and a half when you haven't even reached a thousand yet?" That's where you come in. I'm going to walk the neighborhood and ask neighbors if they'll donate their refundable trash. I'm going to talk to people in the community and ask if they don't have a recycling program in their offices, if I could start one and come pick up the cans for my kids.

And you, if you have a recycling location or a CRV redemption center in your neighborhood, use it! I go to the REPLANET in Arcadia, CA. And I am setting up a PayPal account in my kids' name that you can send your nickels to. If you want, take a pic of your recycle ticket and e-mail it to fivemillioncanproject@yahoo.com and donate those cans, those bottles, those nickels and dimes to Sam and Max's college funds. We would be very grateful. Also, it will show us what we CAN do together.

Thanks!

The Can Mom.

Other places to find recycling locations: http://www.bottlesandcans.com/dev/locator.cfm

Although, I don't know if that's a place to get money for your recyclables or just turn them in.

If you do the math, there are about 493 days left until Sam turns 5. Four hundred and ninety three days until I should have five million cans. That means I need to get 4,999,225 cans in 493 days, or roughly 10,140 cans a day. I can't do this all by myself!

Little by little, thanks for the nickel

So, yesterday I took back 234 cans and bottles, amassing the grand fortune of $11.70.

You might say, "Why do all that work for $11.70?" It's peanuts. Yup. But, it's peanuts that others THREW AWAY. All I did was pick it up. (With the help of my hubs. Thanks, dear.) Some of that $$ came from my husband's office, where people met in huge groups, for lunches, for meetings, for seminars and threw their water bottles away. My darling husband rode public transit with a giant bag of recyclables for the Five Mill. Can Project.

I was taking some old clothes to the Salvation Army and found a bunch of really big beer cans smashed and left on the street. Picked those up. I found bottles in the gutter in yesterday's storm. I found cans on the street in front of my daughter's preschool. I found cans on an early morning jog.

One day it was like following a trail of water bottles. I timed my run to the post office. (Needed to mail in my unemployment form.) On the way back, I wasn't sure which way to turn, but found a bottle on the corner, picked it up. I kept going. Then I saw another bottle, picked it up and turned again. Finally I found a water bottle as I ran (okay, walked) past the park.

All I can say is thanks for the nickels. $11.70 added to the college fund.

(And RIP to the Snapple bottle laying below the bridge in the water reclamation ditch. I couldn't reach you.)