Aluminum Nickels

There are only a few states in the Union where aluminum cans, and plastic & glass bottles are returnable for cold, hard cash. My home state of Maine is one of them along with California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. (This is also currently true in the state of Delaware but it won't be as of February 1, 2011 as their bottle bill has recently been repealed.)

Knowing that every bottle or can you see on the side of the road is just waiting to be picked up, washed out, and returned for a bright, shiny nickel can make taking a walk in Maine a very profitable enterprise. You certainly aren't going to get rich picking up bottles but you can make some decent beer money by picking up empty beer cans. You can pick up litter, get exercise, and make some money all at the same time. That is my kind of multi-tasking!

There is one other extremely important factor when trying to find aluminum nickels in the state of Maine: poison ivy. Maine is just chock full of poison ivy. This means there is a fairly limited window to safely retrieve aluminum nickels from the sides of the road during the year. You have about a month in the spring after the snow melts before the ivy sprouts, and a couple months in the fall once it dies down again. I suppose you can look for them all winter long if you can brave the snow, wind and cold. Brrrrr.

As luck would have it, I happen to be in Maine this very week, the poison ivy has died down for the year, and the weather has been fairly decent (i.e. it hasn't snowed.) As a result I have been cleaning up on my daily walks this week and have been coming home with 3, 4, or 5 bottles and/or cans each and every day. The only limiting factor has been running out of pocket space to store them as I walk. I just can't seem to walk by an aluminum nickel without picking it up.

I actually think they should expand the bottle bill nationwide as it would create jobs - permanent jobs - reduce trash, and encourage recycling. Obama hasn't been able to jump start the economy enough to spur job creation so maybe he should give a national bottle bill some thought.

Mood: Frugal.


Movie Quote of the Day:

"Hey every dad is entitled to one hideous shirt, and one horrible sweater. It's part of the dad code."

-Cheaper By The Dozen 2