My parents have a couple of boxes in their garage where they throw all their milk cartons, juice boxes, bottles and pop cans. I kindly offered to bring the contents of those boxes away to the bottle depot today... in return for a share of the profits, of course :)
I was amazed. I think it was a bit of culture shock, actually! Since I've been away, they've built a new bottle depot, and it's quite posh - I mean, as posh as a bottle depot can be. They have a nice ramp where you can wheel your bottles up to the door in an old shopping cart. Then you go to one of 4 or 5 "stations" where a friendly man will do the "bottle dance" while sorting out your bottles. It was quite something to see - these guys were really dancing as they separated the 2L bottles from the milk cartons from the pop cans from the juice bottles. And all the while, somehow keeping track of how many of each you dumped on their respective counters.
Once they've cleared their counter of the pile of refuse you've dumped there, they give you a little slip of paper which you take to yet another counter. That little slip of paper is just like a little lottery ticket! I found myself holding my breath a bit as I handed my slip over to the cashier... waiting to see just how much money I would reap from my little jaunt to the bottle depot. Imagine my surprise when she handed over $19.65! And just this evening, over dinner, I found out there's a few more stashes of empty beverage containers in the garage which I didn't even see!
So here I'm thinking if only someone could set up some recycling projects back home in Jb.
I mean, honestly, if children like these could make some money from all the plastic bottles lying around instead of just using them for a giant "ball room"... both the environment and the people would be so much the better for it! (By the way, the photo was taken last year in front of our driveway in Jb. And yes, the kids are rolling around in a pile of empty plastic water bottles).
1 comment:
What? You'd like to take these children's play toys? What kind of a sick person are you, anyways??!!!!
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