There is gold in that trash
Thirty-six-year-old Damian Gordon had always dreamed of owning a home, but like so many of us these days, his dream felt totally out of reach. While Australia’s housing market isn’t quite as insane as the U.S.’s, it’s pretty close. Depending on whose numbers you’re using, Australian prices have surged by about 40% since 2020, compared to roughly 45% in the U.S. Getting on the property ladder requires a lot of creativity. For Gordon, it turned out the solution was right under his nose the whole time. Damian says that he often unwinds after his medical job by walking on a local beach near his home on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Relaxing as it was, he couldn’t help but notice all the cans and bottles strewn around the sand. So he started picking them up. By the time he finished his walk, he realized his backpack was full to overflowing just from one stroll. What first occurred to him was the environmental impact. Research online revealed just how staggering the amount of bottles and cans that end up in the oceans each year, and before long, Gordon was volunteering with Clean Up Australia, picking up trash on local beaches.
A few years later, Damian started a music festival in his hometown and made it part of his mission to ensure that all the soda, beer, and liquor bottles and cans left behind made it to the recycling center, not in the trash. When he walked out of the recycling center after that first event with a whopping $4,000 worth of Australia’s $.10 per item recycling refunds, he got an idea. “I’m going to recycle my way to a house deposit,” he told his mother, Helen. After seven years of recycling, the Damian had saved enough refunds to purchase a home. Gordon’s mom is a keen environmentalist, so when he told her about his big plan to move out of the in-law apartment in her home and into a house of his own, she was immediately on board. But, of course, a once-yearly music festival wasn’t going to provide enough recyclables, so Gordon and his mom branched out. They began volunteering for other events and handling the recyclables pick-ups at people’s weddings and parties. People in his community even joined in.
Each month, he’d return all the recyclables and place the money in a separate savings account. Three years later, he’d saved up $20,000. Another four years, and he’d more than doubled it to $45,000. Earlier this year, he combined that with his personal savings and realized he had enough for a down payment on a two-bedroom house. “I can’t believe I’ve bought a house with rubbish,” he wrote, but the journey hasn’t stopped there. After furnishing his house, mainly from reclaimed and used furniture and appliances in keeping with his environmentalist spirit, he’s continued his recycling gambit too. As he put it, “Now I’m paying off my dream home, one bottle at a time.” One man’s trash truly is another man’s treasure!
Recycling Humor
Recycling in the UK is getting very serious…
Even our immigrants are being shipped in reusable containers.
Snickers bars are now being shipped in packaging made from recycled old newspaper comics.
They’re packed with Peanuts.
“Your Honor,” the defense lawyer began, “My client has been defamed as an incorrigble bank robber without a single redeeming feature and I intend to disprove that.” The judge nodded and asked, “How do you hope to accomplish that?” By proving beyond a shadow of a doubt than the note he presented to the teller that day was on recycled paper.”
At the restaurant on the corner I asked, “What is this environmentally blended coffee?”
The waitress responded, “Recycled from yesterday’s and today’s.”
Did you hear about the new brand of glasses coming out this year that are made entirely from recycled ketchup bottles?
Heinz-Sight.
June 3rd Birthdays
1995 – Anne Winters, 1990 – Imogen Poots, 1989 – Katie Hoff, 1988 – Michelle Keegan
1925 – Tony Curtis, 1987 – Rafael Nadal, 1994 – Sean Berdy, 1919 – Chuck Barris