This guy is a moron...I think....recycling for fuel??

Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd share something that made me scratch my head last night...

In our neighborhood Thursday mornings are recycling pickup, so Weds night we put out our recycle bins full of plastic/tin bottles and cans. Last night some guy in a big Lincoln towncar pulls up, digs through my bin for a few 5 cent soda cans, he throws them in a bag in his back seat, and proceeds to stop at every other house on my block...

So, How many cans would this dude have to collect to recover the fuel is town car is burning?? I mean really...at $4.25 a gallon that thing probably is burning more fuel than he can ever recover by collecting 5 cent cans.

Just had to tell somebody, i thought it was pretty ironic.

Well some people just have no life

I can understand if he had some sort of cart or wagon, and walked the neighborhood, atleast he'll get some excercise while earning money.

What you have there is the Al Gore school of mentality. :rolleyes:

Maybe the recycling is just a front and hes casing out the neighbouhood

We have a guy in my hometown that is a real "entrepreneur". He doesn't "drive" much at all. Every weekend he drives an old beat up Chevy station wagon and parks at different spots around town. He dresses in old dirty jeans and a sweat shirt then and puts up his lawn chair and a cardboard sign that says "Cans and Bottles Wanted". I've seen him at least 10 times and every time the back of the wagon is filled with bags of bottles and cans. Word around town is the guy isn't poor by no means and uses the money he gets on the weekend to finance his family's vacation every year!

Can you say "Flim Flam Man"

Pat

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

What you have there is the Al Gore school of mentality. :rolleyes:

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:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

hey i ahve been poor enough to do that :LOL: at least i walk 3 blocks at a time and go get my truck :LOL:

What you have there is a guy who has not felt the sting of birdshort on his buns, or has forgotten the feeling.:LOL: :LOL:

If he wants to avoid the feeling, he needs to stay our of my neighborhood. My neighbors don't take kindly to weirdo's doing weirdo things.:whacked:

Back in the 70s I went to Alaska as a young man. The pipeline was booming. I sometimes stayed at a boarding house in Fairbanks for a few days. The old gal that ran it was tough as nails. first thing she asks me is if I want to work a few hours every morning. sure. Well it's cleaning and stocking sleazy bars at 5 in the morning but on the way downtown we dumpster dive behind safeway. It was just like shopping inside the store, all out dated products by the cases. The old gal fed her family and a lot of welfare moms from those dumpsters and she also owned a brand new GM motor home.
If a man can drive a Lincoln or pay for a vacation from gathering cans more power to him I say.

In most cases, what he is doing is illegal. The trash becomes the property of the city once it is put out. The other side of the coin is that maybe he needs this income to support himself.

There is a local guy who rides a bike and he picks up aluminum. I think he has some mental issues, but he is the hardest working guy I have ever seen. I see him at 6 am, I see him at midnight, 7-24 pretty much. His territory is huge, I have seen him all over Lee County, peddling his bike, which is usually loaded with bags of stuff and sometimes long pieces of aluminum siding and other scraps.

A girl I worked with had a storage building and this same guy coincidently had one near hers. She said one day he peddled in, opened the door to his storage unit, and it was crammed full of every kind of aluminum there is. It was spilling out the door!! :eek: I guess he plays the market and sells it when the price goes up. :LOL: :LOL: Probably one of those guys who will have $20 million stuffed under his mattress when he dies.

Don

We have 2 folks here that pedal their bikes around picking up deposit cans and bottles. Both are a bit screwy, but they are keeping out town's roadsides clear of the trash that the inconsiderates dump out of their car windows and they are making a couple of bucks while doing that. Me - well I'm too cheap to 'dump' that kind of money - a full 33 gallon garbage can of empties is worth about $5.00 (100 cans) and it goes against the ever increasing grocery bill.

I do have a problem with people rifling thru my trash - but since I make a weekly run to the dump (transfer station) while doing my other run around chores, not a problem here:3dSMILE:

hay don I remember those bars I was stationed at ft wainwright fron aug 67 to may 69 you could go in the first bar on 1st street facing the chena river have a beer go through the back door into the next bar thy had conmmon doors bave a beer there go outside on 2nd st go next door and go the otther way I think there was about 12 bars total half way down the block the were 2 story after pay day you could hire a bar maid go up to the 5.00 an hr room for adult intertainment it was just like the wild west sure miss the good ol days lol ted

A friend of mine was visiting his dad in Michigan about 10 years ago. One day he was bored and decided to pick up bottles. He just walked the road ditch for 8 hours and got over $70 worth of bottles. At the time that was $2 an hour more than minimum wage.

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

What you have there is the Al Gore school of mentality. :rolleyes:

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well i know what he is doing just like big Al G he is cash in the pop bottles and buying carbon credit so can can drive his town car:whacked:just like big AL G when he fly all over in is jet telling us the sky is falling what a frickin pile more.... on. ALGAE is

I think the dude won a gas voucher lottery and is just doing his thang. :LOL:

Kitz

Don...I don't think you understood what I was saying. The bags aren't "garbage" that were put out to the curb, they are people "bringing" the bags of cans and bottles to him because they feel sorry for him!

Hey lets face it, I'm sure many are bringing the recycled bottles and cans to him because they are too damn lazy to stand in line at the grocery store to get their deposits refunded. : )

Pat

The guys here will fight for them. Pretty common thing here and has been for years. I've even had people come into the yard and steal the bag of returnable cans by the garbage can!! The one's I've talked to make $500-1000 per month collecting and returning cans and bottles!! Some are retired and limited to a fixed income. Some just need the money.

We get $25 a piece for these at the track. :mad:
About 10% of what they cost new.

My son gave a piece of the block with the letter "B" (from Keith Black) on it to a young kid and his dad and they were totally happy. :3dSMILE:

I told my son they need to change the name of the car to "Carnasaurous Rex". after the caranage of this motor. haha

The alum recycler won't take the block as the steel sleeves are stuck in it. Barely got the remains of the crank out. part of the cam is imbeded in the cam tunnel.

It's a sad fact, that people whether mentaly ill or just plain poor, have to dumpster dive or go door to door thru garbage cans. I don't begrudge them, as long as they are quiet and don't leave a mess. The number of homeless rises every month around here. People who owned thier own homes and cars are now on the streets due to defaulted mortgage loans, or just plain inflation being higher than income. The fact was driven painfully home, when my neighbor saw her cousin and nieces and nephews pushing a grocery cart full of bottles down the blvd here. She hadn't heard from them in years, and now she knows why. She pulled over and talked with her cousin. Same story, lost the house, cars, and couldn't keep a job after that. They were living in COTS housing which will take you in for one month only. Her husband was out despertly trying to find a job during that time. They invited her family to dinner, and were greeted to some major anger and resentment. It's just very hard when you take a hit like this to bounce back, if their is no immediate family there to pick you up off after you fall.
I hope our new election will start a road toward better time, versus what it has been like since 9/11! I really don't care who is elected as long as they actually do what the say they will do, instead of lining thier own pockets at the expense of the country!:CRY:

recycling is good for every one. I remember getting a nickle for the small bottles and a dime for the big ones. People who survived the depression survived by recycling whether it was making dress out of flower bags or fixing things rather then tossing it and buying another. Heck, on my last job of 85 kitchens install we recycled the cardboard and it paid for the gas in the trucks. Bottom line IMO I would rather see the person benifiting from my junk then giving it to some souless, faceless, heartless conglomerate.

The first Coke I bought with my own money cost $.05. It there was a nickel deposit, it would have doubled the price. :LOL:

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Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

The first Coke I bought with my own money cost $.05. It there was a nickel deposit, it would have doubled the price. :LOL:

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It use to be on the refillable bottles here .02 deposit for a nickel coke - which is why they were .06 (yeah, I know!!) out of the machine.

Dating the heck out of us isn't it