Letter to the Editor: Can we find a solution for discarded cans?

To the Editor:

Look at all the nickel cans. The ditches are full of nickel cans. I can’t understand why people throw these nickel cans away. There are all kinds of cans and plastic bottles thrown away.

I was born in the early 1930s and money was hard to come by. We would make fish hooks out of safety pins. Now, all you have to do is pick up cans and you could buy ten years’ worth of fish hooks. Maybe we should raise the reimbursement to ten cents?

Last year I went fishing at the mouth of the discharge water of the power plant in Lansing. I got two fish, picked up a pail full of cans and plastic bottles, plus my pockets were full.

Last year, I parked over by Bloody Run in the casino parking lot. I couldn’t believe all the cans and bottles along the riprapped bank. At 87 years old, there is no way I could pick them all up. Now the casino has all kinds of containers to put trash in. Maybe somebody could come up with a better idea than ten cents a can.

I read about a guy in high school who came up with an idea to make plastic bale rope out of something so the livestock could eat it. Maybe we could come up with edible cans and bottles?

Earl Jones
Harpers Ferry