Returnable bottles

[Admin]

How many of you pick up bottles and cans for the return nickle deposit?

I find it very interesting how different people have different values. Some won't go out of their way to save 5 bucks or earn 5 bucks while others will squeeze a dime till it s**ts a nickle. Money is money and if I can save 5 bucks and also earn 5 bucks, that equals 10 bucks and 10 bucks can put 3 chickens in my freezer.

I have one neighbor up the road and they are dirt poor. Seriously poverty stricken but totally by laziness. Plenty capable of earning a living but does nothing. I really feel for his children because he is setting such a poor example for them. I offer help all the time buck get sick of it. I will always help a person but they better have the gumption to help themselves as well.

So yesterday I take my quad up the road to where I have a weasel trap which held a small weasel. It may bring 3 bucks but I was happy for the catch. I then cruised the length of the road and picked up 66 beer cans. These cans lined the edge of the rd where these folks live. Now wouldn't you think they'd pick them up for the nickle deposit as poor as they are?
Anyway, after this I went down another road on my quad and picked up more cans totaling 87. I didn't go out of my way for these things, just tooled down the roadside on my quad for a few minutes. 87 cans @ .05 = 4.35

Later in the day the wife came home with a nice package of Haddock fillets that we would have for supper. The price on the haddock was 4.35 exact. The same price as what I made by picking up the trash on the roadside.

My neighbors must be too proud and too rich I guess to indulge in such efforts. As for myself, I am neither so I will keep picking them up. Money is money and it will put food on the table. In this case, trash never tasted so good.

[Canadian trapper]

I keep all my beer bottle/ cans and any liquor bottles (which seem to add up fast?) and when the kids do bottle drives in the area I give them the bottles for what ever sport or hobby they are collecting for.
I remember 1 little kid asking for bottles so I told him to get their driver to back up to my shed. When I opened the door the kids remark" Man does this guy ever drink Lots" Anyway that's what I do with my bottles.
The Canadian Trapper

[fishleclair]

JC, When I was a Kid and we used to go camping allot I would go to the Dumps and pick out the beer cans for the $$$$, My dad would get mad cause I didnt want to leave....And trust me after the May Long weekend there would be 100's of easy pickin cans!

[maritimer]

We have to sort all of our garbage, recyclables, and compostables. If not, we run a risk of getting a fine from the "Garbage Rangers" as we call them. The guys who run around looking through trash, and smelling bags making sure that nothing is in them that's not suppose to be.
It's probably a bi-monthly thing to haul cans and bottles to the depot for a little extra cash. I will pick up a bottle if i see it on the road or if I see a bag of bottles by the side of the road waiting to the truck, I'll nab them. ;D

[barkspud]

We save all our returnables, I throw them in the truck when i find them in out of the way spots. On the roads and all i leave them, theres people who ride the roads wi th a tractor and pick them up weekly. I know of a few who walk for them and hide the bags of them then go back with a truck and pick them up. When i was a kid i lived with my grandma and we would go around turn outs and all..a nickle bought somthing back then. I couldn't even begin to guess how many fish rods and lures cans bought me aa a kid. You could even pay for gas back then she had a chevy chevett.

[patricimo54]

I recycle all my aluminium cans. We don't have the deposit thing on bottles here in Texas.

[TRAPnHUNT]

I use to make a ton of cash returning glass pop bottles when I was a young kid! I use find empty a huge amount of empty bottles outside of the backdoor at the local grocery store. After I took a serious from my dad, I never did that again. I seen the error of my ways real quick!

[Admin]

Ya know, if my neighbor would take his kids down the road and pick up the cans, then exchange them for the nickel each and stop at the grocery store and buy food with that money, the kids woud learn a valuable lesson from that. Even though they were dirt poor, there's still a way to make a few bucks to put food on the table. But like I said, I wouldn't doubt it if they were the ones that threw the cans out in the first place.

[barkspud]

When i was a boy around ten or so my grandfathers cousin Fransis used to come up for the summer. He worked at the manchester collage and was a bass fisherman and outdoorsman, born and raised on the river in maine. We would do canoe trips everywhere his brother Junior(cheif)was a trapper. He was mean as heck but had some good stories. Man couldn't he cook on a fire the things he did with a reflector oven. He told me when he was a kid gathering bottles and returning them for a few pennies. Then going to the general store and buying 22 shells by the round the owner broke the box down for them. Then hunt along the river for dinner what ever came along duck, rabbit or grouse ect. They had a huge family 14 brothers and sisters i could imagine. They had some sweet stories and i sure had some good times with those old river rats.

[Admin]

Dec 17, 2011 23:52:26 GMT -5 barkspud said:

Then hunt along the river for dinner what ever came along duck, rabbit or grouse ect.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Valuable lessons for the younguns. Ya don't have much money? you can always find food or find a way to drum up some money to buy some. You can always get what you want in this world, ya just gotta work towards it.

The only lessons these children are learning up the street is it's ok to sit on your a** and do nothing cause that's what food stamps are for, and you don't even have to earn those.

I think the days of self sufficiency are falling far behind us.

[fishleclair]

When I would go out to the trap line for moose hunting I would pack 1 Nice T Bone Steak and some potatoes and bread and butter eggs and some bacon, 3 days in the bush and my wife would say " Yer gunna Starve, You need to eat better" Well I told her what I didnt need was Chickens pumped full of garbage, Ill just shoot some parteidge, Pork chops that were fed garbage Ill just shoot a rabbit or two, Fish from a fish farm that was geneticaly alterd to grow bigger and faster Ill just catch a few pike and the streak, Well I could leave that in the store and catch me a beaver for the Back straps!

There are loads of ways to feed ourselves when the seasons are open and licenses in our pockets! Every bit helps when it comes to saving some $$$

[stickbowhntr]

At one time we hunted in NY -- they woul dnot take crushed can or one not almost perfect shape do they now? Like they said it has to stand?

[Admin]

Dec 18, 2011 11:56:39 GMT -5 stickbowhntr said:

At one time we hunted in NY -- they woul dnot take crushed can or one not almost perfect shape do they now? Like they said it has to stand?

Not 100% sure on that.If have dented ones I stick them in the back of the 12 packs just in case. The really trashed ones go in my aluminum pile along with my vienna sausage cans.

Steel cans go in the steelpile just like downhome does.

[bowslinger]

yes i pick up pop and beer cans and bottles along the water fishing or in the woods hunting in the summer we go for walks and pick them up the kids have there own bags they carry ever can or bottle they find goes in there bag to cash in and buy what they want i rember the the first time my 4 year old cashed in his lil bag of cans i told him thats your first pay check for a good job u did

[gerrye]

I pick up cans and bottles while out in the field to cash in.
Hell I'll even put up a grinner for a buck.

[brushwolf64]

I pick up cans and have a good deal going at work. I work at a resort hotel and they have a golf course. All the beer cans and soda bottles get thrown in the trash during golfing season. The guys who throw the trash out save the bags of bottles for me. Last week I cashed in 21.00 dollars of returnables that would of been thrown out. Im over 100.00 so far this year in returnables. Im guessing I will be over 200.00 by the time golf season is over. It always amazes me how most people throw easy money away. This found money will buy supplies for the line this fall. Wife thinks im nuts but the money jug is filling up!!LOL

[Admin]

Karma to ya brushwolf. ;D I pick up every dang bottle I find when I'm out trapping and they add up fast. I even crush all my steel cans and one of these days I'll take a trailer load of cans to the metal buyer. I'll make a dollar every which way I can. ;D

[northwoodstrapper]

The boys and I were finally able to get into camp last weekend. And on the way in we found where somebody dumped 9 beer cans and a schnapps bottle on the 2 track. The boys and I picked up somebodies mess, while I have my idea why they left them there it really pisses me off.

[HuntTrap13]

We are pretty blessed here in Michigan. Both cans and bottles can be returned for $.10. My family of five saves up for a year, I'm 16 and the only one who feels like returning them. I make about $90 a year just returning my own families stuff. I may start picking them off the road and throwing them in the truck bed. Might start to make some money. You guys got me thinking now.

[yooperdug]

Several years ago a story about a local man made ESPN.Theres this little school sysytem just to the north and west of me in which ,all told,has about 100 kids give or take. This retired gentleman spent his time picking up cans and bottles,enough so that the little school system could have uniforms for their basketball team.It caught on so much that folks started helping him with the cause,and soon not only did they have uni's,but transportation costs were paid for the entire basketball season.
Ive always been humbled by this gentleman-his efforts certainly paid off. Everytime I see cans/bottles,I stop (if I can) and pick them up.

[determinator]

This thread brought up memories of an old album, released in April of 1974. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping. I listened to this album hundreds of times in the day, working on my guitar slingin' skills...

Here's the song, Ballad of Curtis Loew...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=03TgkCVDlrA

[brushwolf64]

Golfing season is over in about 6 weeks here and the hotel slows down some so the returnables wont be as heavy. Last week I took back 4 bags from 2 weeks of collecting and got 56.50. Im close to 300.00 so far this year. It still amazes me folks throw them away.

[hogkiller]

May 12, 2013 14:50:42 GMT -5 HuntTrap13 said:

We are pretty blessed here in Michigan. Both cans and bottles can be returned for $.10. My family of five saves up for a year, I'm 16 and the only one who feels like returning them. I make about $90 a year just returning my own families stuff. I may start picking them off the road and throwing them in the truck bed. Might start to make some money. You guys got me thinking now.

hunttrap13,,,the $$$ from our cans and bottles goes towards my my gun fund every year,,,just to get ya going a little more bud. LOL

[redneck315ers]

I get me some cans the other day went to a concert and filled the car it pays for my outdoor habits wife thi ks I'm nuts

[treestand13]

When I was a kid, I worked for a Farmer and one day we were out working the fields, he saw a bottle laying at the edge of the wood line. He told me to go pic it up and put it on the tractor. Me being a dumb kid said what for, he said boy that is 5 cents. Then he said if that was a nickle setting there you would have picked it up right, I said sure. His comment to me is 5 cents is 5 cents. I have never for gotten that, and pick a bottle every time I'm I can. Just the other day My wife and I was cleaning out my jeep and she started to put a bottle in the trash, I told her the same thing the farmer told me. Also when my son and I are out walking some of the property's we have permission to be on, we pick up the trash and bottles that other PIGS!! leave behind.

[John Gusmano]

Here in Michigan it's 10 cents a bottle. Your darn tootin' I take back every bottle and can I come across!!!

[mitrapline]

Sept 11, 2013 7:54:19 GMT -5 John Gusmano said:

Here in Michigan it's 10 cents a bottle. Your darn tootin' I take back every bottle and can I come across!!!

I second that! I pick up every can and bottle that I see. It amazes me how many people throw money away .

[stewart]

If you really want to pick beer bottles look at golf courses the golfers just leave them everywhere. When I cut the ruff on a small 9 hole course I can pick up 25 to 30 bottles without checking the garbage pails and another 6 to 15 golf balls at .25 cents each. beer bottles at 10 cents adds up every day I work on top of my wages.

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2011 18:08:39 GMT -5 patricimo54 said:

I recycle all my aluminium cans. We don't have the deposit thing on bottles here in Texas.

Same here

We take our cans in to the recycle place about once every 3-4 months, and usually walk away with around $30 to $40 in cash. That's $150 a year back in our pocket. Very little effort involved, and the recycle place is only a couple miles up the road. They even empty the bags from the truck

[Ipostbulls**t]

X2, any time I see scrap metal I'm on it extra income I am all for. I take my cans once a month along with and scrap metal I come across which is usually around 50 bucks or more a month.