Did you guys collect cans for extra money?

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FreedomSquatch@reddit (OP)

Yeah when I was just a little older we'd do bottles mainly

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gmlesak@reddit

Yep, but we had to crush ours. It was a weekly chore.

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FreedomSquatch@reddit (OP)

Ahh yeah that was one of the things I hated were crushing beer cans. My Mom always found a way to make it fun though!

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gmlesak@reddit

Remember stumbling upon a steel soda can (I think some root beers didn't use aluminum). I'm possible to crush.

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phillysleuther@reddit

Dude, I collected so many cans when I was 5 that I bought a purebred poodle

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phillysleuther@reddit

Yes! She cost $ 450. My dad said if I wanted a dog, I had to buy it. I got my poodle. Her name was Wendy. She lived from August 5, 1983 to November 17, 1998.

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Growing up in Iowa, there was a five cent deposit on aluminum cans. We’d scavenge as many as we could, take them to the grocery store to collect the deposit, then buy snacks or toys. We usually only made a couple dollars at most, but that went a long ways back then if just wanted a candy bar or a soda.

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FreedomSquatch@reddit (OP)

Yeah it always seemed worth the effort! We had a cool arcade in town that got a lot of our can and bottle money lol

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lemming_follower@reddit

Our local grocery store (Cub Foods) had a machine called the "Golden Goat" in the parking lot where you could take your cans and get money; I think it paid you in quarters?

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FreedomSquatch@reddit (OP)

Lol then straight to the arcade!

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CrazyCatLadyRookie@reddit

Happy cake day!

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lemming_follower@reddit

Thank you!

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-DethLok-@reddit

Yep, I plan on taking my cans to recycling tomorrow, should get $22 or so for them. Easy money!

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Bitemyshinymet@reddit

I still do

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Stardustquarks@reddit

Absolutely - I think I got .25/lb for aluminum. I collected glass bottles too, but can't recall the price I got for that...

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Dr_Girlfriend_81@reddit

Yyyyyyup. And we lived off a busy highway, so kids from school would see my family out there picking up cans and would come back to school making fun of me for it.

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letzealrule@reddit

We lived in a touristy beach community but we’re pretty poor. I would go to the public beach at night tipping trash cans and fill 2-3 black trash bags a day.

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quipsNshade@reddit

Grew up in Michigan, 10cents a can. 3 grocery bags of cans was $10. Gas money back in the day. Stop by your aunts/uncles - take the returnables honey. Score! I’m

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TheBrooklynKid@reddit

I collect them and plastic water and soda bottles for a guy in my neighborhood. I leave them out in my yard for him. I feel bad when I don't have at least twenty for him.

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MrsTruffulaTree@reddit

Not anymore. Almost every grocery store used to have a kiosk where we were able to sell back our recyclables. Some time in the late 2010s, they started closing. The only place close by (10 miles away) has a line that forms before sunrise and can take hours before it's your turn. It's just not worth it for us anymore. At my job, someone has a bin to collect can to sell back, and I'm happy to contribute my daily can of soda.

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WileyCoyote7@reddit

Yup! Grew up in Oregon, so 5 cents a can. Lived right next to a major interstate/highway junction so people threw out tons of cans weekly. I hauled in several Hefty bags on the regular and cashed out.

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Gvajr77@reddit

Still do

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Vigilante17@reddit

Maybe not as many cans as in college, but $30 in recycling will still get you some pizza and beer after :-)

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_sonidero_@reddit

My neighbors and I made a lil mini forge and melt them down to make ninja stars and crappy Rambo knives...

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FreedomSquatch@reddit (OP)

Sounds fun! What was the coolest thing you ever made?

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Gvajr77@reddit

Nice

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_sonidero_@reddit

Yeah it's dumb, plus if you take a big ol polished brick of aluminum to the recycler they pay more...

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losingmy_edge@reddit

Do you strip copper out of houses too?

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_sonidero_@reddit

No, I'm not a heathen...

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losingmy_edge@reddit

Really? Stop acting like one

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_sonidero_@reddit

I will not...

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CrazyCatLadyRookie@reddit

Ooof. That went south real quick.

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Gvajr77@reddit

Here, it's just easier to take a couple trash bags to the bottle drop and walk out with a good bit of change.

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pagit@reddit

Have to make the mortgage payment somehow.

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pagit@reddit

My dad would bring me around to his friends places and collect all the beer bottles and pop bottles One time I got well over $50! The bottle depot was also a Pop Shoppe. Anyone remember Pop Shoppe?

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Gvajr77@reddit

If you only knew...

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soupinate44@reddit

Ran them up to Safeway weekly to go into the crusher with the conveyer belt in the hole that was terrifying. Hoping I wouldn't die from wasp stings, the smell or somehow get my arm caught in the hole. My mom used the money to help pay for my brother and I's sports. That behemoth was a thing of dreams and nightmares in one, big blue square.

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DalbergTheKing@reddit

Not cans, but we did collect glass bottles for the deposits. 10p per bottle. My idiot brother jumped the fence of the local distribution centre & pinched a few crates of empties. Pretty big risk for £1.20 per crate, but this was 1983 & you could get a huge bag of sweets for £4.80. I was a little more patient & would slowly fill a crate over a weekend of scoping out roadside ditches, building sites & parks.

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StupidOldAndFat@reddit

Lived in the country and had 8-9 apple trees, se we sold apples. We even took them to local farmers auctions and sold them by the bag.

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denikar@reddit

Yep. 10 cents each in Michigan. Would walk along the freeway near my house and collect ones people threw out their windows.

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9001@reddit

Cans didn't get ya anything here in Ontario. Collected lots of glass bottles for the deposit, though.

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CrazyCatLadyRookie@reddit

BC has deposits for single use beverage containers, so it works out there! Mom used to save the plastic gallon milk jugs and cash them in when she was low on money and needed smokes lol

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Miss-Figgy@reddit

Yes. It's how I bought girls/women's magazines that my conservative parents wouldn't buy for me.

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BunnyBunny13@reddit

I still remember the stale soda odor of the recycling center. That was big money baby! My family have always been soda drinkers.

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Grunge4U@reddit

I grew up dirt poor in the rural midwest and would walk for miles picking up cans as a kid just to get perhaps $5 at the time. I think of this when I pay to have all my recycling picked up at my house and my business. In the late 80's recycled cardboard sold for $75 per bale, now we pay to get this recycled. I find it strange that we recycle so much more now than we did when I was a kid and the recycled material has almost no value vs then.

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GloveFamous2646@reddit

Hell ya. I grew up in michigan. 10 cents a can!! Use to make a killing after concerts or public events.

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Bluepilgrim3@reddit

At ten cents a bottle and ten cents a can, we’re pulling in 500 dollars a man.

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Raaazzle@reddit

Under the bleachers...

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CyanideRemark@reddit

killing, or collecting cans?

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Sillylovesongs2@reddit

Bottles back then

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FieldOfScreamQueens@reddit

We used to collect glass pop bottles. It’s amazing to think back on how many were just discarded all about.

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NorseGlas@reddit

Me and my friend did this regularly. Just go door to door for a day and between 2 of us we could always gather enough money to rent a few videos or Nintendo games and lots of snacks for the weekend.

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acp1284@reddit

The neighborhood kids called me “trashdigger”.

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jasonreid1976@reddit

We were so poor, it was additional income. One day, my mom, dad, and brother and I walked along one of the main roads of our home town and collected every can on the side of the road. Ended up bringing home a solid three full bags of cans.

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Dan-68@reddit

Yah. My alcoholic dad would send me out to collect so he’d have extra beer money.

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Raaazzle@reddit

This is an entire industry in the alleys of CA, and it ain't kids - sadly.

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Raaazzle@reddit

We kept them in the trunk and that was gas money. You know you're from Michigan when you're paying in cans.

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Bobmanbob1@reddit

Yup, me and grandpa would park the wagon, walk and collect from one side, ghen back up the other. Found a wallet with no ID once with a $100 in it. Helped pay our pig processing fee when we took them to slaughter.

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KookyComfortable6709@reddit

Yep. We use it for extra gas money.

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stomperxj@reddit

Dad drank his fair share of beer growing up in Oregon so on the weekends my brother and I would fill up a paper sack each full of cans and go to the corner store on a candy run. Boston Baked Beans, Chik O Stiks, Be League Chew, Sixlets... etc :)

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viewering@reddit

i did it only a few times, i think to buy popsicles and candy. i forgot, thank you for the memory of the alcoholics near the trainstation. suddenly *the message* starts playing in my head.

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Yangoose@reddit

When I was 12 I got the bright idea to collect all the newspaper from everyone on my paper route. I made flyers and gave it to all the people on my route then managed to talk my parents into driving me to pick up all the newspaper in our minivan. The result of all this work was something pathetic like $5. I was so disappointed...

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the-cloverdale-kid@reddit

I had a paper route. Guess that is not a thing now.

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oldshitdoesntcare@reddit

I still do.

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losingmy_edge@reddit

Used to collect bottles. Used to knock on doors. Dude flashed us and we said fuck you. Went to the next place. All about the ducats.

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Spazmatick@reddit

Allegedly, the machine we went to as kids measured by weight, so my friends would put a little sand into each one. I felt bad the one time I did it thinking the sand would break the machine.

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AshDenver@reddit

I grew up in MI where that pile right there was $10! Damn skippy we collected them.

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Melca_AZ@reddit

This brings back of the not so pleasant memory of the recycling center and the putrid odor of stale beer.

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Jimathomas@reddit

My buddies and I would collect cans, a lot of them coming from my dad’s Coors consumption. It was rough hauling them to the recycling center, but then they put a CanBank machine in just a few blocks away. We’d clear five or six bucks with every haul.

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ToddBradley@reddit

My grandmother regularly went “can hunting” in the farmland around her town. Once a month, she’d take all the trash bags full of aluminum cans to the nearby city to cash them in for money to supplement her Social Security check.

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BillyBainesInc@reddit

Circa 77 going to the store with a quarter to bye candy and could find 5 cans along the way and get a Mad Magazine as well…..those deposits should have kept up with inflation

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Neddyrow@reddit

My kids go to a catholic elementary school and since the divorce, the bills are tough to pay. I save my cans for their tuition.

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ericbrow@reddit

My mom worked for a guy whose business was behind a grocery store. Down one side of her boss's property was a long bush, between the grocery store and his business. When school let out, he'd hire me to clean that hedgerow, as garbage would blow over from the grocery store parking lot. Also, when the grocery store closed, several of the guys would split a 12-pack of beer, sit on the back dock and throw their empties into those bushes. Back then, there was a 5 cent deposit on glass bottles like that. Mom's boss would let me turn in any bottles I found for the deposit. More than once, I got more money in deposit refund than I did what her boss was paying me.

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