I went round the neighborhood picking up dumped drinks cans. Don’t worry I wore gloves to avoid catching any dosser/chav diseases. I got fed up of seeing dozens of chucked-away cans on my regular running route so I went round on my bike and bloody well picked 'em all up. Here’s the score from day one.
That lot went into the recyling last week.
I’ve been on another mission since but I’ve not collated the stats yet.
I’ve since been out for a run (Wednesday) and there were a dozen of so fresh cans so my job isn’t finished yet. Wish me luck.
I’m a superhero, an effete British superhero. Or something.
Not last time I looked. I wish there were some bag ladies collecting the damn things, save me some trouble. I’d pick up plasic bottles too but they don’t squash flat - I’d have to tow a bloody trailer.
I walk in the local park four mornings a week. And about twice a week there’s an elderly couple who drive up in their SUV and then walk to the nearest trash can, rummage through it with tongs for pop cans, put them in a bucket, and drive to the next trash can.
And sometimes I look at them and I think, “Can collecting, dammit…”
I used to have a short paper route, mostly on my own street, so I walked it. Part of it went through an apartment building where a lot of university students lived. Now, most of the route was clean, as Michigan had a 10 cent deposit on cans. But students can be pigs and I usually picked up enough cans in a week to let me see a movie, and have snacks as well.
I’ll pick up a non-nasty piece of litter or two when I’m on the subway. I figure that if more and more people do that, the subway will become neater, and then people will be less likely to litter, leading to a virtuous circle which will only end when we can eat off the floor. Not that I’m actually planning to do that, or anything, even if predictions don’t have us achieving that degree of cleanliness until 2187.
Collecting cans is popular because metal is expensive these days (thanks, China!). The things you have to watch for are missing cover plates in the road. The 427 in Toronto lost a couple of dozen catchbasin covers a few weeks ago, and now they’re spot-welding them down.
