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.