About six months ago, my husband was out of work. We decided to make a game out of living on the edge of poverty. We collected cans and bottles from the side of roads, recycle bins and garbage containers. Our goal was to collect enough in deposit returns to pay for groceries. We did this for three months and were able to collect about $60 a month and buy enough groceries for the month at Aldi’s. It was fun for about three weeks.
After that, our relative wealth became a little clearer to us. Gas prices went sky high about the time my spouse got a new job. I kept collecting cans out of curiosity and habit. I discovered as the gas prices rose, the availability of discarded cans and bottles disappeared. There were letters to the editor in our local paper about others collecting these discards to afford gas to get to work. I decided they needed it more than us.
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