DEAR Jasminda,

FOR a couple of years I’ve been encouraging the kids to use our local Return and Earn facility, but lately they can’t be bothered, so now I recycle the cans and bottles and cash in the vouchers.

It doesn’t really seem worth it for all the effort.

I thought they’d appreciate the extra pocket money.

Should I just put them in the recycle bin?

Wendy L.

Wendy, putting your kids in the recycle bin seems a bit harsh, but I see your point.

No, I know, I know, you meant the bottles and cans.

From what you’ve described, though, your kids are possibly overindulged and indolent silver spooners who’ve had it too good for too long.

Please feel free to use any of those descriptors next time they can’t be bothered doing something that gives back to the environment, the community and themselves.

I remember the absolute joy we used to get as kids taking our crushed cans to the local can cage (you had to crush them then, not simply toss them down a chute).

We didn’t think about the recycling benefits then, but we knew a good gig when we had one.

Crushed cans equated to paddle pops.

I sense you aren’t going to be able to convince your kids for altruistic reasons (if you recycle 1000 cans you save 5,874.16 litres of water) maybe you could appeal to their capitalist sensibilities.

Where else can you earn 10 cents every couple of seconds? It works out, if you hit a cracking pace, to be about $180 per hour. Not bad.

Particularly if you’re the one supplying cans and bottles to your offspring and driving them to the facility.

Wendy, you seem like a decent sort of a person.

Don’t worry about indulging your kids.

Continue taking the cans and bottles yourself and then donate the money to a much more worthy cause than your children’s piggy bank.

You can donate it to Foodbank, for example, an organisation that provides help to the one in three households in NSW that face hunger and food insecurity.

Food for thought.

Carpe diem,
Jasminda.