Keep Pushing

It turns out that I'm not the only one who hasn't seen Colleen in a while. I noticed this evening that the boys next door (those who helped me collect all the cans when I first tried to find the can collector) had two recycling bins full of empties. Surprise, surprise. They go through a lot of cans. Actually, the real surprise is that no one had collected them. So I asked. 

The boys also have a friendly relationship with Colleen, however, not one of the six of them had seen her in the last few weeks. Colleen has actually worked out a deal with them. Apparently, it's not uncommon for full, unopened cans to find their way into the pile of empties, so she gives the boys the discarded full cans and they set out their empty cans for her. 

John "Woody" Woodrow said that she probably stopped collecting because it isn't worth the time. For a short time they stopped giving her their cans so they could doing the recycling themselves.Woody and boys apparently did not have as much luck as Jim Schroeder, "Mrs. Maintenance" (the mother from Minneapolis) or Charlotte Buck.   They thought that with the amount of cans that they go through, they could make some serious money. However, they only collected $13 for a full garbage can. It didn't take more than one week for them to decide it was not worth their time, and the cans again became free game for Colleen. 

Or at least free game for someone. It's certain that even if Colleen doesn't come, the cans still go. It just takes a bit more time. 

I'm going to continue to set out my cans for Colleen. Even though she hasn't been coming around, I know she appreciates seeing that garbage bag full of empty cans along the side of the house. Even if I never end up seeing her again, I hope she knows that my cans will always be there for her to collect as she continues to push the boundaries of recycling. 

At It's Finest

This CNN video shows a man who raised enough money from recycling cans to help send his four children to college. 

Removing the "Calm and Quiet"

My cans haven't been collected recently. And my phone calls haven't been returned either.

I read an article on treehugger about how the slumping economy has significantly sunk the value of recyclables such as plastic and metal. The article went so far as to call the recyclables "practically worthless." Perhaps that's why Colleen hasn't come around. But I don't think that's what it is.

I think between working a night job and taking care of her sons, this extremely hard-working woman just became too busy to wake up early on Saturday and Sunday mornings to collect cans these past few weeks... which puts me in a strange situation.

I have been thinking to myself, extremely worried because I no longer have a story for this blog. The person whom I had wanted to follow and learn from has been virtually unavailable. The interesting angle that gives the audience a glimpse of what life is like in another person's shoes has disappeared. And quite honestly, a lot of time, effort and hours of lost sleep on my part seem to now be for nothing. 

But the truth is that none of my time has been wasted and my story is not obsolete. The path to the story is the story, which is what makes blogging so interesting. It's not about the neat and polished final product. It's about the ongoing process that can come out looking nice and polished but can also come out a bit more rough. Like Andrew Sullivan said in his article about blogging--it is free-form, accident-prone, less formal, and my personal favorite, more alive. 

Alive. 

A blog is alive. It has the capability to not only tell a story, but also transparently show the journey of getting there. As Sullivan said, blogging "removes the calm and quiet." The ups and downs that a journalist experiences while trying to put together a story never make it into the final product. They are purposely excluded. But in a blog, not only are they included, but they become the story itself. 

A Waiting Game

Ok, so I wasn't actually punked by the can person... just an accidental wrong number. And a misspelled name. The woman who collects my cans each weekend is named Colleen, not Colleem. I rewrote a note and reattached it to another hefty bag of cans. I was delighted when I woke up that Sunday morning to see a new phone number written in the same script.

Although I have Colleen's number and see her sporadically on weekends and some weekdays, she's harder to be in touch with than one might think. In all honesty, it's been a frustrating last couple of weeks. While I have not been able to get in touch with her via phone, I have run into her enough times to schedule days to go collect cans on three different weekends. However, when plans change and all parties don't have cell phones, one person gets left sitting on the porch... alone... at six in the morning... Halloween morning.

Sorry for the dramaticism. Getting up early for the past three weekends and curling up with a blanket on my porch while the rest of the city has just gone to sleep has been fairly interesting. The day after Halloween in Athens at 6 am is a peaceful site, the only activity being a few people cleaning up some stray pieces of trash. I would bet that I'm one of the few people who have ever seen Athens at this hour the day after Halloween. And while I'm looking on the bright side, I've certainly gotten better at using the night scene setting on my camera.  

One of the other three weekends I waited for Colleen, I observed a few of the other can collectors, one of them being a couple who drives up North Congress past my house every weekend. According to the article, they collect more than 150 pounds of aluminum earning $85-100 per week. It's odd though, because I know Colleen always get my cans and my neighbors cans so I wonder from where exactly they collect the majority of the cans. 

Step 1: Find the can man

I didn't know Colleen when I decided to start this project. In fact, I'd been saving my aluminum cans for another man whom I had met about a week prior. I left him a note on top of a bunch of cans, duck-taped down with marker attached so he could write his contact information. In order to gather this entire trash bin of cans I actually got help from my neighbors because Sarah and I just can't drink that much beer.  My letter to the can man read, "Hello, We met last Saturday morning and I said I would leave you some cans. I think what you are doing is great and I would love to interview you for a class. Please contact me @ 419-308-1227 or leave a way that I can contact you. Thanks! -Sarah." 

The next day the cans were gone; so was my note and marker. I wasn't too thrilled. Disappointed and a little pissed off, I walked back into my house, only to notice my note (with the marker attached) taped off to the side of the door. In the bottom corner I saw that someone named "Colleem" had left a contact number. 

I was a bit nervous to call Colleem. But I knew I needed to make the call, so I did. And I got a wrong number message. So I tried again. And again. And that same message was my only response. That same feeling I had when I thought the can person took my note and marker started to come back. 

I had been punked by the can person.

The Phenomenon

I was lying on the couch with my eyes glued to the window. Half listening to the TV and half listening for the clashing sound of aluminum cans, I waited for Colleen. 

It's a phenomenon that is prevalent in college towns across the country. People like Colleen spend Saturday and Sunday mornings collecting empty beer and pop cans from college students' houses. I first learned about this trend on a trip to visit my friend at Ohio State. As we pounded Natty Lights during a game of 80's power hour, my friends kept chucking their empties into their yard off of Summit and East 18th. As an avid litter-hater, I was appalled that it was nothing for them to just throw the trash outside. Before I could scold them, they informed me that the bums come around and collect the empty cans and recycle them for money. Ohh. 

Once I moved off campus into a house on North Congress, I started to notice people who collected cans in my area. And collecting in a college town like Athens makes a lot of sense if one's quest is to find empty (beer) cans. 

However, this practice of collecting recyclable materials is not limited to college towns and certainly not limited to bums. In Shanghai, China one blogger calls these collectors an army of three-wheeled carts attached to bikes. They are professionals--organized and efficient--making a living off of this profession. And a mother living in Minneapolis started collecting cans to save for her son's education. His bank account now grows yearly by about $1,000. Just from the cans his mom collects. 

So this is my quest to learn more about the can collecting phenomenon that happens (literally) in my own backyard. But it turns out that tracking down those people who collect empty aluminum cans is more difficult that one would think.