How Does the Kan Kid Work?

Step 1 Contact: The first step is someone contacts me and says they have cans to be picked up. They contact me by emailing me (thekankid@gmail.com) or messaging my mom on Facebook.

Step 2 Pick Up: To get the cans to the recycling center we need to first get the cans. We get in the car and drive to the pick up location. We grab the cans from the porch (or wherever the contactor leaves them). We load them in the car. Then we drive home.

Step 3 Sort: Next if the bags have more than one type of recycling material, we need to sort them into different boxes and/or bags.

Step 4 Smash: Then we stomp the cans to flatten them. The reason we do this is so we don’t have an overloaded load in our car – everything has a limited amount of space; including space.

Step 5 Twist: On our plastic bottles we need to take off the lids. The reason for this is because at the recycling center, the machine could get jammed if the lids are on the bottles. They ask us to remove all lids from plastic bottles. We can still leave the lids in the bags to get recycled, they just can’t be on the bottles.

Step 6 Get Ready: The final step before we get to the recycling center is to put the cans, plastic, and glass bottles in the car to drive them to the recycling center.

Step 7 Cha-Ching: When we get the recycling center, we put our cans and bottles into bins. We put the bins onto a push cart and push them to the weigh station. A worker weighs everything we have and then gives us a receipt telling us how much we are owed. Then we take the receipt to the “cha-ching” station and the cashier gives us our cash. They also have fun, yummy lollipops that they hand out with the money. I like the green ones, my sister gets the purple ones.

Step 8 Pay Day: My dad takes the money and takes 25% out and puts it in a small wallet, waiting to be donated. He then calculates how much cash I get and how much goes into my savings account. My sister also gets a percentage of the money because she helps smash and get the cans. My dad calculates her share as well. When we get to $100 in our donation wallet we deliver a check to Tabby Nation Cat Rescue.

How you can help:

You can help by rinsing your bottles, smashing the cans and taking off the caps of plastic bottles and sorting the different materials into separate bags before we pick up. Thank you for your help!