Recycle Now and Then

I had a recycle thing going on in the '90s. I had a bigger thing for Diet Coke.

The recycle incentive was all about the cash.

My Diet Coke intake was about eight cans a day.

I rinsed and saved all of my empties. I filled plastic grocery bags with the clean cans and threw them into the attic.

Do you remember the automated recycle stations from the last century? Feed your aluminum cans in the hopper, the recycle station preferred whole cans and would smash and compact them, then dispense your reward in quarters.

I was ready for a payday and I loaded my '87 Volvo 242DL. The car was filled up to the bottom of the windows, front and back with full bags of near pristine empty Diet Coke cans.

As I filled the hopper with cans the machine would auger the cans inside and crush them and move them to the storage area. After enough weight was accumulated, a quarter would drop in the payoff slot. After many bags, my reward was $9.75.

We had several paper recycle bins at my previous employer. The bins were segregated by color, white, and coated stock. The bins were about 4' x 5' by 4 feet high. Our company picnics were funded by the recycle effort.

Now, at work, We have a recycle bin in the building. We have labeled our former trash cans as either Recycle cans or "Not Recycle" cans. We empty the recycle cans on Fridays, or when they are full so the cleaning crew will not waste our sorting efforts by dumping everything in the trash bin.

"Recycle" is evolving from a money effort into a common sense effort.