half a million cans over seven years
If the cans are only $.10/ea, then 450k only netted him $45k. It took him seven years to earn just enough to pay for the deposit, not even the house.
Real Boring Dystopia Shit
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
322 points (97.6% liked)
Not The Onion
15570 readers
1111 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The guy paid for a down payment on a house with a hobby. That's cool. I'm jealous.
He paid for a down payment with seven years of manual labor earning less than a living wage.
I've got a truck bed and more worth of cans out back. Maybe worked 4 hours over two years? Almost all of the effort was crushing them by hand since I kept breaking the shitty crushers and been too lazy to make one. And that's not counting the cans I pick out of the woods, usually toss them with the other garbage I get.
Maybe worked 4 hours over two years?
And you've got 450k cans in the back of your pickup?
Sure, dude.
I think you misunderstand them.
I've got a truck bed and more worth of cans out back.
More than just the truckload, not more than OP.
How about you time yourself gathering and crushing a truckload of cans and then come back to the conversation prepared to address the main point
You can absolutely make $4ph on your hobby, I believe in you.
I pay for my hobbies. A lot of money.
I'm ~~jealous~~ envious.
I mean he also has a full time job, he made 45k in 7 years off his side hustle.
I do agree that it should be easier to afford a home. Also bottle deposits need to rise. They've been stagnant for over a decade where I live. It's like a 2-in-1 city cleaning program and beer money program for bums.
Where tf did he find all those cans? There are people in my community digging through trash for some cans and bottles and don't find as many
While he holds down a permanent job during the week, Mr Gordon also volunteers at events like music festivals, where he collects thousands of cans and bottles at a time.
That's a lot more than you can fit in a shopping cart.
I think it's country dependent. Wealthier countries with low deposit have more thrown away.
You’re out in nature while helping to clean up the environment and also making a little income.
Better than just working “for the man” don’t you think? There’s also far worse you can do with your spare time.
I'm so glad these corporations are giving us single use cans for the opportunity to connect with nature and earn a little income.
Of all the things you can be angry to corporations, bottle and can recycling is the wrong one.
No it's not. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to recycle their products. They are shifting blame onto the people
As a person who lives in country where bottle recycling works i disagree. Also it should not be the corporations who makes the rules, but the goverment.
Every store needs to accept every bottle and can and the system needs to be uniform between all the companies. Last year from all the sold bottles and cans 97% were returned to bottle recycler system, not because corporations shifted their responcibility to consumers, but because the goverment has ordered the companies to make recycling efficient, easy and worthwhile for the consumer.
The corporation cannot walk up to you and handhold you into recycling it. That is absolutely an individual responsibility.
You’re out in nature while helping to clean up
You're out in nature... IN AUSTRALIA! He's risking his life being out in nature picking up garbage.
Most of the time they take the cans and bottles out of people's recycling bin
don't make this sound too good, so ppl flinging bottles into nature don't feel like benefactors 😆
My kinda dude. Read the article if you haven't already. He's going to big events and absolutely cleaning up, literally and figuratively.
I find so much cool shit to upcycle, fix, sell, whatever on the side of the road. Go anywhere humans gather for an event and you can haul home loads of goodies. After the 4th of July fireworks on the river we filled the car with brand new chairs, toys, floaties, all sorts of things.
If I were motivated enough, I could make a living picking trash. Had a friend making $400-$600 a week fixing up trashed washers and dryers after work. Another couple made $400 every other weekend at their garage sale. "We steal our neighbor's trash and sell it back to them." LOL, they would roll out at 6AM, twice a week on trash day, fill the truck and give away whatever didn't sell by 2PM. My wife is clocking $200-$300 for a few hours at the flea market, and we haven't even got serious yet.
I grab shit on the side of the road. Got two nice ceiling fans for free last week. (Lights stops working because the US required voltage limiter burns. Cut it out, free fan.) I've replaced nearly every shitty plumbing and electrical device in the house for free. (OK, the sweet new hall light was $1.) Got two bikes for my kids that will take $100 each in new parts and will end up mostly new. Found two nice carpet cleaners that were used once and tossed, need to clean them and sell. Same place chunked a brand new, white, glass-sided mid-tower with factory and upgraded fans. I can go on forever with these tales. And this is all in my spare time.
Man knows what he's doing with that shirt design
He uses that shirt to lay flat on the floor of the roller rink arcade and hide until after hours. All the games are free then.
Now we know what is more profitable:
https://lemmy.world/post/27585832
Forget batteries man! Bottles is where its at!
And you bad dog broadcast this secret loudly, and the competition for this dear guy is rocketing high! :)
True, but let's be honest. There can't be more than 2 or 3 people who will stick with it for more than a week or a month at the outside.
It’s central coast, not cold even in the winter. #paid-for-exercise :)
That program should have been Retearn instead of Return to Earn
That’s an average of 176 cans per day. I’m all for recycling but that just feels like a second job
Genuinely, is that an issue if it is one?
Not at all. I’m just wondering how much time he spent getting those cans, but if he enjoyed the process, then all the better