Judge not lest ye be judged

Hey all,

So I set another personal record today. I recycled my cans and took in just over $13. Even with crushing each can down, my poor bicycle may have reached its saturation point:

I would be worried about wear and tear, but bicycles tend to have a pretty short life at UCSB. Between drunken crashes, salty air, and (most importantly) committed thieves, an average bicycle has a half-life of about 1.3 years. My bike, purchased in good (not new) condition, has already lost the use of the front brakes and most of the rear brakes. If you hear someone dragging his flip-flops around North Hall, there's a good chance you've stumbled upon a vertitable internet non-celebrity.

But back to the bottles!

I tried to snap some photos of the place but I ended up playing kick-the-can with a 5-year old boy who was turning in cans with his dad while I waited for my #1's and #2's (type of plastic) to be weighed.

$13 in a week is a new record for C3. I really had to pull out all the stops to make it work. Among some of the less savory tactics employed this time around were:

and

I understand that the above photos represent what economists refer to as rent-seeking (the practice of earning money by taking it from someone else). I'd like to think that anything thrown away is fair game.

On the bright side, I also got my first ever donation via a random Gatorade bottle left in my basket (Cheers!) and some sympathetic bros on the soccer fields ("saving 'em up for beer, huh bro?"). One thing I've realized is that if you live in a bottle-bill state and you don't want to save a can for yourself, you can literally throw it anywhere you'd like, guilt free: someone will find it, and happily take care of it for you.

Thanks for reading!
Charles