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Re-Cycle-Cycling |
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Written by Mark Logrbrinck
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Sunday, 20 April 2008 |
Re-Cycle-Cycling in Los Angeles
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We have always recycled what we can at our house. Vikki is more proactive about it. She gets mad when I do not bring bags to the supermarket. When I put brown paper bags in the recycling can she digs them out.
The City of Los Angeles makes it really easy to recycle: one black bin for trash, the green one for yard trimming and the blue one for recyclables. Now I don’t mean a tiny bin. It is a full size trash can. You can throw everything in it, no separating. Still people do not do it. The end result for us is hardly one trash bag a week. Sometimes we have so little trash I don’t put out the black can for a couple weeks. (We haven’t gotten to the point yet of Ed Bagley Jr., who has only one glove box of trash/week!)
So a while back I decided to stop putting our bottles and cans in the recycling bin and redeem them instead. California has a pretty good redemption program, a nickel for less than 24 ounces and a dime for over 24 ounces. Hell when I see a nickel I pick it up. So I started saving cans at work and home. It is pretty sweet when you get $30-40 cold hard cash for trash.
Now comes the fun part of the story. I got tired of seeing all the trash along the road and in the hills above our house while biking. I see nickels and dimes. I have had an old set of panniers from 10 years or so ago. I threw them on my old Kona titanium frame set up as a single-speed 44x18 with slicks, my first road bike. Then I hit the road and trails around the house with a new conviction. The first trip I filled up the panniers in an hour. Subsequent trips were just as successful. By the end of a week I had over 35 lbs of glass, 8 lbs of plastic, and 4 lbs of aluminum. On my ride yesterday in a little over 2 hours, I collected 20 glass bottles, 50 aluminum cans and 40 or so plastic bottles. The bike weighed 48 lbs loaded. Just in redemption it is around $6 and for the week $24. The first workout/training program that pays you, in fact the more you un-litter, the more you earn more and the ride get more difficult. Win, win in my book.
So now for my training routine, I jump on my bike, clean up the hood and make some dough. It just amazes me what and why people throw out. Besides all the cans and bottles you got cigs and their cartons, fast food drink cups and bags and sometimes you find street money. I found a 5 Rand coin once, from South Africa. How the heck did this coin find its way to the street? It dumbfounds me, I tell you.
More later,
Tex
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