#691 – Return

When I was a kid I remember seeing a segment on a TV show about how kids could earn extra money. One story showed a girl going around collecting aluminum cans from around her neighborhood. She wasn’t just earning money, she was also making her surroundings look better. I was pretty excited. “I could do that too!” Then they got to the part where she brought the giant garbage bag filled with crushed cans to the recycling center. The man gave her a whopping 25 cents for her week’s worth of work. Whaaaaaaa? My 30 second dream of fame and fortune was shattered.

This all changed when I moved to Michigan where there is a 10 cent deposit on each can. I kept every orphaned cylinder of glorious aluminum I came in contact with. Many bags of potato chips were purchased and consumed.

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39 thoughts on “#691 – Return”

  1. Micah says:

    Frugal week. Awesome.

  2. Futch says:

    YAY! MICHIGAN! Except when it’s cold. Then I want to move to Florida.

  3. One of the smellier recycling centers.

  4. bobo says:

    compost biff, compost.

  5. Leo says:

    Silly Biff; everyone knows that they’ll just sell the pizza crusts back to you at three times the price as “bread sticks.”
    (Also, happy birthday, William Syler. Have a great one!)

  6. speearr says:

    No stuffed-crust pizza…?

  7. reynard61 says:

    This is gonna date me, but I used to do the same thing back when soft drink bottles were made of glass and most were recyclable. My model airplane addiction grew accordingly…

  8. Chris says:

    Oregon has a 5 cent deposit which is nice. In Shanghai, China you get about a 2 cents for every can, or bottle and there is a whole labor force of elderly and poor that dig through trash cans around the city collecting anything recyclable that they can then sell to supplement their government aide.

  9. Albireo says:

    Am I the only one who actually eats the crusts?

  10. SEA says:

    Nope, i eat the crust too. It’s nice to chew =D

    Deposit here? Nope, it’s either we throw them into the recycling bin (if we bothered) or throw them into the rubbish bin. (which others bothered to go and search for :/)

  11. Forte says:

    As long as the crusts are soft, I love to eat them. I prefer Digiorno pizzas for just that reason.

  12. Reaper says:

    St Louis has a very nice setup. There’s an ordinance that everyone pay a very small amount of money, I think 20 per month, and they give you a giant black recycling bin. You dump all of your recyclables into it. The only stipulation is that you clean whatever you can before it goes in. It costs you money instead of getting paid, but then you don’t have to go anywhere, it’s perfect. We recycled 2 aluminum wheels, and an old fan one week.

  13. Reaper says:

    Forgot to mention that the city comes around and picks it all up twice per week. Dad said his garbage output fell from 5 to 1 cans per week.

  14. Primera Espada - Ryan says:

    This one took me about a second and a half to process. I went from WTF to LOL. You’re on a roll Chris!
    @Reaper – Nice. We kind of have something similar. They’re have restrictions on what they’ll take, and our recycling bin is about the size of paper box, but a little larger. The thing is, we’ve STUFFED that thing with cardboard and plastic and they take it. We’ve also set the damned thing on top of larger boxes and they still take it all. The week after Christmas…holy cow. There were so many boxes and so much wrapping paper and other assorted stuff that we put in/around that box. The next day it was gone. I was half expecting some sort of note to be put on it like “KNOCK IT OFF!” but no complaints, unlike when you park your car in front of the mailbox. That’s pretty awesome that he got rid of wheels AND a fan. I imagine that WOULD cut down on a lot of waste.

  15. Primera Espada - Ryan says:

    ?agastinos(?)
    Pizza Pasta Tacos

    What’s the name of this place Biff goes to?

  16. dartigen says:

    Here you can get 10c for plastic bottles or containers (cleaned, and no lids on the bottles for some odd reason). With cans, you get 5c per can, although if they’re crushed it goes by weight rather than by number of cans. Glass is by weight, so you’re free to smash up the bottles and jars to save space, although the recycling places don’t like it if they’re already smashed.
    At our school, we have plastics bins (cans and glass aren’t allowed on school grounds), and lately people have been stealing the plastics bins and emptying them. I think it’s mostly because of the doubling in the refund for plastic bottles – it used to only be 5c and nobody bothered. The groundsmen are happy though, seeing as nobody cleans what goes into the recycling bins so it always smells.

  17. Wayne says:

    You live in michigan? I didn’t know that… where?

  18. Chris says:

    @Wayne – I went to college in Grand Rapids. I currently live in Illinois.

  19. ZackDark says:

    Happy b-day to william.

    and such things would be impratical here. the amount of garbage that can be on the streets (not even talking about trash cans) is absurd, and money-for-each-can-return would lead to a parallel market that would eventually overpower the local government. that is why the 25 cent per “ton” of cans happens here.

    btw, really?! the crust is what I love the most about pizzas.

  20. ZackDark says:

    (i meant “the amount of garbage that can be FOUND on the streets”. damn you hurry, damn you! :P)

  21. Amanda says:

    Chris doesn’t eat the crust but I do, so it is just another reason why we are a good match. Yum Yum!

  22. -2! says:

    Saving Money week still works… pretty good for guessing so quickly 🙂 Where i live we now have 3 different types or recycling. Papers Plastics/Glass (yes there separated) and Pizza Crust. Apparently you can also throw other organic wast into the Pizza Crust recycling bin! The only things you can get a deposit for are glass bottles, which are never used for beverages I will drink!

  23. Nymori says:

    One of the many reasons that Michigan = Awesome

  24. William Syler says:

    Hilarious comic. I really like that idea… considering how much pizza i tend to eat…

  25. -2! says:

    You have 691 comics and no random button. Yes you have the best search function i have seen on a webcomic (the whole showing a preview of a comic makes it for me). But I could waist an hour on here every day if there was a random button. Right now I am forced to use a random generator and then find that comic in the archive.

  26. Chris says:

    The random button broke when I upgraded the site software, it will be back soon.

  27. no name says:

    Pieces week.

  28. skywerwolf says:

    money week

  29. Speakerblast says:

    Happy Birthday William

    You can now legally drink in every Canadian province but mine.

  30. alecho says:

    i love pizze crust…

  31. -2! says:

    @ Speakerblast
    Either you are wrong or you must live in Ontario. It is 19 years of age here. And I guess happy birthday to “William”
    @ Chris
    I look forward to that day, when i will have absolutely no way of being able to focus on anything on my computer ever again.

  32. Reg says:

    This reminds me of that comic where Biff ate too much pizza.
    I wonder what Biff’ll get with all his saved money. A new rocket ship?

  33. Darkpheonix XIII says:

    Finally finished reading every biff comic up to date. Now to go back and do it a second time!

  34. Chris says:

    @Darkpheonix XIII – Good luck!

  35. Gato says:

    Michigan is fabulous. My little cousin went with my grandpa down to Ohio, where there is no bottle tax, and collected, and he got ten bucks.

  36. Reso says:

    I think that while my comment is about to kill the statements about ‘free’ potato chips in the comment, but here goes: when i lived in michigan last year, i thought that the 10 cent deposit on cans was great too – until i realised that they took the money from me at checkout and that on returning the cans i was merely achieving a net gain of $0. i actually had to work harder just to break even.

    don’t get me wrong, i’m all about recycling and think this is a decent way to give the incentive to do so, but it isn’t really ‘free’ money unless you have someone elses cans (unless i’m totally wrong or something, and therefore on crack.)

  37. Robert says:

    Who doesn’t enjoy the crusts!? Ok I know a few
    But really; It’s the best part!

  38. maxsteele2 says:

    I actually eat the crusts. It’s kind of like a free breadstick side.

  39. Voyager says:

    Ironically, I stopped doing that when I discovered that you have to file it on your income tax returns in some states. $50 is not worth an audit risk.

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