Payday

Hey all,

So today was a big day for C3. After class one last swing through some good on-campus spots, I collected everything together and got ready for the ride to the TOMRA center in Goleta. I got some stick-on velcro straps for the IKEA bag, so I could keep things together for the ride (note the black strip near the handle):


I was able to get it pretty neatly onto my bike. In the future I could wait longer and just pack more into my bike. I could have fit a few more in the basket underneath, and my backback was only about half full:

The bike ride was mostly uneventful, except that I saw "Wizard" napping under a tree by the Santa Catalina towers on my way back home. Wizard, who's real name is apparently Daniel Cardenas, is probably the second most famous bum in IV after the legondary Pirate. Wizard is one of a few permanent drifters who live in Anisqovo Park and help add to the lore of Isla Vista.

When I got to the center, I had to wait a few minutes for a couple of students in front of me to finish up. The whole operation is run out of two metal shipping containers with facing doors. On one side was aluminum (shown below) and the other one held class and plastic. The latter was pretty much empty, but I'll try to grab a shot next time.

The guy running it gave me two wire barrels to separate the plastic and aluminum. Then he weighed the baskets to find how much they were worth. (you can see the display for the scale on the left side of the next photo). As you might expect, TOMRA takes deductions for how wet your recyclables are- water's heavy, after all.


Because I had a good number of recyclables, I got paid by weight and not by item. For the sake of time, it seems that this is how just about everyone does it. The prices can be seen below on my receipt:

Aluminum and plastic pay out $1.57 and $0.97 cents per pound respectively. Glass, which is heavy, pays $0.10 cents a pound. I only had three glasses, so I got paid by the item for those (top line above). The proprietor of the center declined to be in the photo, but he did say "maybe another time". When I told him I was a grad student trying to learn about recycling, he just sort of chuckled.

You can read my total for the trip from the photo: $3.30. It probably works out to somewhere around $1 and hour. That's not a bad start, and I'm confident that I can probably get my totals up if I 1) figure out how to hold more on my bike and 2) find some good on-campus spots where the local Gauchos don't make it. Plus, students are beginning to trickle in, which will turn into a torrent in a about two weeks.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions leave me a comment, and I'll try to comment back.

-Charles