Recycling Aluminum Cans

I have seen the articles about senior citizens having to recycle aluminum cans to pay for medications. I am a senior citizen. I have seen the street people pushing carts and picking up cans, maybe there is money to be made recycling aluminum cans? I thought I would check it out.

The research

I know a man that deals in scrap metal. He deals with large stuff, cars, trucks, refrigerators, washers and dryers, but he also saves cans. I asked him how much aluminum was going for...per pound. He responded "65 cents per pound". That was the price at that time and I found out later, it changes. He also told me it takes 24 cans, plus tabs, to make a pound. He seemed to know his business.

Ok, I did the math. If I pay $4.29 + tax for a refrigerator pack of pop of 12 cans and I can get 65 cents back for recycling, that's good. When I can buy the pop on sale....even better. I was ready to supplement my retirement income, tax free!

Business start-up

We started saving pop cans. At first, I just put a plastic bag within a paper grocery sack in the laundry room. We faithfully rinsed the cans so as not to encourage ants in the house. It filled up immediately, so....I added another sack. I realized there was a potential problem and I had to crush the cans to conserve space.

Operation flaws

On a sunny day I took the cans out on the patio. With a piece of 2 X 12 board and a small sledge hammer I sat down and proceeded to crush cans. I did this two times and realized there was a design flaw in this process. It took too long, it made my hands hurt and mostly, what was I going to do in cold or wet weather? I could not just throw away 65 cents. I consulted my "expert" again. He suggested I invest $12.98 + tax in a wall hung can crusher. Up to this point I had no start-up expenses. I got the can crusher, making sure it was within a planned trip to town so as not to have additional gas expenses on the business. We mounted it outside the gardening shed, but still under cover from the rain and north wind. The can crusher worked great, but, the cans fell on the ground. I needed a rigid box with a lid for them to accumulate in before taking them to recycle. In the next trip I made to town, I purchased a plastic storage box with a lid. That cost $14.98 + tax.

I was in the local feed store one day and noticed a stack of "tote sacks" for sale for $1.00 each. I purchased 4 @ $4.00 + tax. I thought these would be perfect to store the crushed cans before taking them to recycle. The plastic container with lid...runneth over!

Fun at my expense

By this time my friends were have as much fun at my expense (personally not financially) as I was having fun. The question to me would always be "How's the business going?" My response was "still in the hole!"

To the recycle place

The day finally came to take my 4 tote sacks or gunny sacks full of crushed cans to the recycle yard. I did not know what to expect. The men at the yard were extremely nice to me, even commenting on my nice tote sacks. I kindly told them where they could purchase some for themselves and requested my sacks back, if that were possible. They returned the sacks to me. (The expense thing, you know) My total take was $27.42. That left me approximately $9.00 still in the "hole". Oh well, not to despair, the next trip will bring profit!

Tenacity

It is past time to go again. Yes, we have continued to save cans. Once the process flaws were worked out the operation is fairly smooth to carry out. I will have 6 bags to take this time. I resorted to yard plastic bags for the two additional bags. I must go soon as the cans are taking up a lot of space in the garden shed. I could see where it would not take long to fill an entire garage full!

As far as the retirement supplement, I think I will just stick with AC.