Recycling

Leina, in her cluttered basement, keeps all her recycling which she saves up so she can redeem them and receive a few cents a bottle. On Saturday, Leina and Erica and Tony went on her first redemption run in around 6 months. The bottles, including the 30-year-old bottles of white zinfandel, fully filled the well in her Surbaru wagon.

They went off for a combined breakfast/redemption trip. Leina wanted to go to the Safeway on Monterey Avenue at the bottom of her hill. To her dismay, the redemtion trailer was closed. No bother, they would go over to Tartine for breakfast and stop at that Safeway in Japantown. Tartine was open, but there was a huge line, with at least 20 people in it who could not yet fit through the door. There were no chocolate crossiants anywhere in the world that could induce Leina to wait in that sort of a line. And the redemption place was closed, too, with a long line of slightly sketchier canners waiting in line for it to open at 10:00. She wasn't going to wait in that line, either. So they went to a third Safeway, which was also not yet redeeming, before they decided to eat granola and muffins for breakfast in a cafe. Finally, they drove back to the first Safeway, where the trailer was open, but they wouldn't take her glass bottles. She earned $8.35 for her troubles, but still had half-a-trunk full of glass. Tony offered her $2 for them, so he could bring them home and put them on his curb. Leina declined payment, but was kind enough to let him take the bottles off her hands.

That afternoon, Noriko came over and brought over a big garbage bag of her empty plastic bottles because she knew that Leina liked to redeem them. The cycle starts anew. Leina has not decided if she will save them or put them on the curb.