Run, Recycle, Repeat

Have you ever gone for a run and been so annoyed with the amount of trash on the ground? It breaks you from your moment of zen. You go from dreaming about your future, to weirdly grossed out, worried about all the turtles that might end up dead... You want to do something, but just don't know what? I'm one of the first people to admit that I'm a little weird, but I can't be alone in this! Here is the story of how I tried to help.

So I do this thing where I run every day. I will post another article about that eventually. One week, I decided to pick up all of the cans I saw while running. A little strange, I know. The snow was melting after a long winter in Michigan and I just couldn't handle how much trash was on the ground.

I was living over on the west side of Michigan. The area was extremely wooded and very remote. I couldn't figure out how there could be this many cans and bottles on the side of the road. I later discovered that many people have what is called "road beers". The cans then get thrown on the side of the road because... well... drinking and driving is illegal and they don't want to be caught with the evidence. As someone who has never done this, my only thought was, that cans were blowing out of the back of truck beds. Feel free to laugh at my ignorance. Please tell me someone else is as shocked to learn about "road beers" haha.

So one day while running, I picked up a few of the cans and brought them back home. It occurred to me to try doing this every day for a week. That first day I could only bring back what I could carry in my hands, but I decided to bring a bag with me the next day.

Day two I ended up collecting 7 cans and even picked up a few bottles. Bottles kind of weighed me down and I didn't particularly like carrying them.. but. FTE-[For the Environment]. I couldn't just leave them.

Day three to six I collected anywhere from 3 to 8 cans/bottles. It snowed a day in between there making it a little difficult to find anything. I started mixing up my running route to cover new areas I missed. I did also collect other trash, other than bottles. I did come across a dildo at one point, but I just couldn't bring myself to pick that up.

I finally came to day 7 which was my long run day. My goal was to run 6/7 miles. I ended up finding a total of 21 cans/bottles. I found more, but I couldn't fit anymore in my bag. It kind of turned into a game. There were times I would run a little farther than normal because I was trying to find more cans.

I ended up finding over 70 cans and bottles by the end of the week. You can see most of them in the picture below. I was working at a YMCA Camp at the time. The job provided a house and free living. I still probably shouldn't have placed the dirty cans on the table. For the record, I wiped it down and cleaned it really well haha.

So what did I do with the cans/bottles?

In the state of Michigan, you can take your cans and bottles to your local grocery store and return them. You get 10 cents per can/bottle. There are certain rules like it needs to be pop/beer bottles. They don't take water bottles, but I was able to return a few sparking water bottles(I think because of the fizz). They didn't let me return energy drink cans. Certain brands like specialty beers are typically not accepted either.

The states that have a bottle return policy are; California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa. Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. They all have different rules and I don't know all of their policies, but getting money back for cans/bottles is a huge motivator to get people to recycle. If your state doesn't do this, it might not be a bad idea to start.

So I returned these bottles to my local Meijer and received a total of $5.70 for them. Again, I didn't get money for them all, but they were all recycled. That's the most important part. If they were missing labels or too destroyed, the machine would not take them.

Now you may be thinking $5.70 isn't very much, but how many people do you know have actually made money running? Let's do some math. $5.70 divided by 7 is $.81 a day. If you did this for an entire month or 31 days you would have around $25 dollars. That pays for a few coffees.

Let us go further, If you did this for an entire year, you would have 300 dollars. That is so crazy to me!! My roundtrip flight to Colombia was 300 dollars. My round-trip flight to Iceland was $200 dollars. If I was to continue this, it would cover the cost of some of my travels. It feels so wonderful to be doing something great for the environment and making money. I was already running, so I didn't even spend any extra time doing this. It is a win-win for everyone.

I also used to coach cross country and track for a bit. To think if we did this just for a day, all across the United States, we could clean up so much of the country. Not a bad idea for next earth day! You might even be able to raise some money for much-needed equipment.

So next time you are running, think about picking up those cans/bottles. Even if you don't receive money for them. We can create a recycling runners club. We can all clean up the earth little by little.

Save the turtles.

Like Dr. Seuss said "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better its not.”-Dr.Seuss

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