Has the economy got you down? Darned-tootin! And you are not alone. With so many of our neighbors losing jobs and an economy still on the downswing, it has become more important than ever to find money where ever you can.
Yesterday my daughter and I went to S & S Metal Recyclers to recycle 10 pounds of aluminum cans which we crushed with the cool aluminum crusher from Clean Air Gardening (in the video above). Talk about entertaining – everyone who comes to our home wants to try this crusher because it’s fun to use. We earned $3.50 cold hard cash for our efforts (inset photo shows the scale weighing the 10 pounds at S & S). If you send the same metal off with your community recycle collection truck, you get absolutely nothing beyond the knowledge of having done a good deed. Personally, I like the bonus of cold hard cash in my hand!
Now – I know what you’re going to say to me, “it takes FOREVER to save up 10 pounds of aluminum cans!” Below you see my youngest daughter holding the two bags of cans we took to S & S. You may be right – it took us several months of collecting because we do not drink a lot of sodas at our home. However, I have a creative solution for earning even more dollars.
Metal recycling companies recycle far more than aluminum cans. Typically most recycling companies will give you cash for copper, iron, aluminum, brass, wire, stainless steel, sheet metal and much more. S & S also recycles batteries, metal automotive parts, refrigerators, washer-dryers, old bath tubs and the list goes on.
Why not go to all your local friends and family. Explain that you need extra cash and would like to come and collect their metal once a week. If you could get enough people to help you out, you just might collect $3.50 per day instead of $3.50 once in a great while. For your efforts, that’s an extra $100 per month you could use on your family’s grocery’s or pharmaceutical bills. With a little work, you could make even more.
This would be an awesome fund raising idea for churches and community organizations, particularly if you could collect larger items. No matter your goal – financial or eco-oriented - the good news is you will be doing something good for the earth as well as yourself.
Keep metals out of our landfills! Recycle!
Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com
That would be great for my house, my husband goes through so much Mountain Dew and Im always throwing cans away. Time to make money off of his addiction.
Posted by: Deanna | July 14, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Good Morning, and Great reminder, we too, recycle, and our cans go to help a local family in Historic Milan, Indiana.
Recycling is a great green step to making today a cleaner day.
thanks Shawna, Jim Oberschmidt
Posted by: Jimhandi | July 14, 2009 at 09:48 AM