Every penny counts

In these times, every penny counts. And every can counts, too!

I think every penny has always counted, and trust me, I've always loved counting my pennies. Today, I took in $7.70 worth of cans and bottles. Thank you, brother. Thank you, hubby who brought home recycling from work. Thanks to the friends who also have donated.

Our grand total is now up to 4,314 cans!

How to raise more?

So, I currently have bottles and cans coming in from friends and family (a few of their offices), a local school and a local business, and occasionally my husband's office. However, in a previous post I had mentioned the couple who recycled 400,000 cans to pay for their wedding. They did this in 6 months! (http://www.weddingcans.com)

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/greenpicks/284/couple-recycles-400-000-cans-to-pay-for-wedding.html

So I want to know why I've been doing this for longer and only have 4,160! I must ask them how they did it.

Anyway, our GRAND TOTAL is up to 4,160. ($208.00)
I must find a way to branch out here.

I Won The Lottery!

I just won $10! (By picking up other's trash, and by helping my friends recycle their bottles and cans from work, and schools, etc.)

So, here's 200 more cans to the cause, bringing us over 4,000 cans!
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I just heard on 980 AM the other day on "L.A.'s Afternoon News with Maggie McKay & Michael Shappee" the two hosts were talking about how much of a pain it is to return your recycling cans and bottles. Mr. Shappee complained his wife takes so long to do it; he had to wait for her and at the end, she only got $8! Number one, I bet she only got BACK eight dollars. That money was a fee she paid when she bought the cans/bottles of beverage. So, good for her for not throwing away her money. And number two, it's important to monetize recycling. You know why? Because fewer people would recycle if they didn't get anything from it. I grew up recycling. It was just something you did. But I sure never went through trash back then to pick up a bottle. I didn't hold onto a bottle until I got home so I could recycle it. And I'm pretty sure my parents paid for curb recycling. And I know more than a few bottles or cans probably just got thrown in with the trash just because it was cold in the garage, snowy winters and temps below freezing and all. (I haven't always lived in California, you know.)

When you monetize a can, it makes it have value and people actually pay attention. It's sad that people pay more attention to money than they do their planet's well-being and cleanliness, but if it makes them pay attention, I'm all for it. And I also happen to know it provides jobs. The gentleman at the rePLANET that I frequent-- the one who always says, "Hi, my lady," when he sees me-- has a job because of CRV (California Redemption Value). I know there is a man who owns that location too. Anyway, Mr. McKay, it may not seem like a lot, but I bet those $8 here and there add up, and I'm certain that for some people who collect our wasted "nickels" at gas stations, grocery stores and littered in the streets and highways, it brings them food.

Anyway, that's me on my soapbox. (I wonder which other states have a similar program.)
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Grand total, 4,003 cans/bottles.
The boy is napping, so (and here's something you don't hear most lotto winners say:)
I'm going to go look for a job!

Marathon Woman

So, this is how you can tell I'm a woman possessed. I ran the Disneyland half-marathon this weekend. I ran a 12-minute mile for the first and kept pace around 15 minutes per mile after that. By mile 7, my legs felt heavy and leaden. By mile 11, I could feel some blisters forming under my toes. And yet, I still contemplated picking these up:




There were more bottles and cans that had been discarded. After I crossed the finish line, nothing really interested me besides stretching and icing my sore legs, but I did really wonder if there was a bag somewhere so I could pick up those bottles.

By the way, I finished the half-marathon (13.1 miles) in 3 hours 36 minutes. And the soreness is almost gone.

A little math

When telling a man about The Can Project, he said, "It's like that saying-- the journey of a million miles starts with a single step." Well, the journey of 5,000,000 cans starts with a single can. And I'm thankful for my friends, grandmother, relatives, who have donated to the cause. There's been local schools, businesses, and I just am so thankful to everyone.

Tomorrow I'm running a half marathon, and much like this project, it's just keeping at it, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. I know I can do it!
Either way, wish me luck. And this week, there's been $17.60 worth of cans, 352 to be exact, bringing our grand total to 3803, nearly $200 for my kids' education.

Okay, so here's a little math.

If you look at how many cans I've collected and how many I need, well just put it this way, when I make the pie chart for out of Five Million Cans, the "slice" looks like a line. But when I make the pie chart for out of 100,000 cans, it looks a little better. Here, take a look!

When You're Saving One Can, You're Saving Two Cans!

Or "When you're saving one can, you're saving toucans!"

Every day on PBS Kids, I hear this being said. I don't know what it's a commercial for, or if it's just a public service announcement, but I like it.

I also both love and fear that the other day, the three year old (ALMOST FOUR!!!) looked in the trash can and I said, "Don't touch that! It's dirty!" And she looked at me and said, "I was just looking for cans, Mom."



So, this week, we got two gigantic and heavy bags of recycling from the Dodgers game we went to on Friday. (Free tickets thanks to saving receipts from the 76 gas station.)

Also, my brother kindly donated the many many bottles of Mountain Dew he drained.
Several friends gave some bottles and cans-- more Perrier, Dawn? And the day spa that said they didn't get many bottles gave me a huge bag full of plastic bottles that otherwise would have been thrown away. Yay! See? Every little bit adds up.

$9.20 added to kids' college fund.

TOTAL CAN COUNT: 3451

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!

Okay, so here are a few of the things I've done in my life-- been on TV and won a game show, run the Honolulu Marathon after raising $3,000, JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE. You would think that going around the neighborhood asking local businesses to start recycling and possibly donate their cans and bottles to me would be relatively easy. And it was. But I have been putting this off and off and off. Yay, procrastination. I walked two blocks with Max this afternoon asking local businesses if they recycled and if anyone else picked up their recycling.

One local business, Suburban Martini (which I think is a great store, and Kelly, I love your stuff, and Daisy is too cute) was very into my project. She took a card and said she'd call when she got any sizable about of stuff together and suggested I ask the bar next door. She thought they had someone pick up the recycling, but what did it hurt to ask?

At the bar next door, Gem City Grill, I stopped at the front door. There was a sign that read "No one under 21 may enter." With Max in my arms, that sign almost stopped me from going in. I hemmed and hawed and went back and forth. It was like a force field pushing me back. No, scratch that. It wasn't the sign pushing me back. It was fear. But I thought myself out of it. "What's the worst that could happen? The other store was really nice. What are you afraid of?" I literally went up to the door, turned around back to the car and went back to the door twice. But, I went in and nodded at the man at the bar at 11:00 a.m., who smiled at Max. I continued past the girl shooting pool and found someone who worked there. Tracy (?) told me they already had an older couple who came to pick up the recycling every Wednesday, but she said she used to be an environmental consultant in the early 90s. Oh, that got my attention! And she told me how Waste Management paid people to talk about worm farming and recycling at schools. Also, she used to work for a company called Ecosynthesis. Oh, you can bet I'll check that one out! So, no cans, but I got a little knowledge.

And on and on I went. One block, then another and finally success! Daniel at Y Sharis Spa was a little dubious, I think, as to what I was doing, but I happened to have a brand new recycling bin I got from Bottles and Cans.com and he let me give it to them. He seems to not think they get many bottles and cans, but he will let me come once a week to pick them up. (We'll see how many pile up, little by little. Maybe it'll be a few, maybe not so much.)

Anyway, next I stopped at T Phillips Alehouse and Grill on Myrtle and talked to the bartender there, who was very friendly. She suggested that most of the local bars and restaurants set out their recycling around midnight or 1:00 a.m., and if I was interested I could pick them up then. Hmm... we'll see.

After that, it had been about two hours. My extrovert was tired and I don't know why, but each store seemed like another rock to climb. I was so proud of myself for feeling nervous and anxious and going in anyway. So, we'll see if I hear from Kelly at Suburban Martini, or Lori at Monrovia Florist. But if nothing else, I DID something!



Edited to add: Can total: 3267