Pick it up?

A couple times a week, when I stop for gas on the way into work, I'll also grab a coffee for the commute. Standing in line yesterday, which was more like a cluster header forward than a line, a person ahead the digs in to his pocket for money and some change drops out. He looks down, sees that it is a couple of pennies and walks away and up to the counter.


I've seen this scene play out over and over. There seems to be this quick mental calculation of value of what has dropped versus the "expense" of bending over and picking it up. This person clearly saw what had dropped and had time to visit with the cashier, so he wasn't rushed.

Me, well I watch this play out and follow behind and in just about one bending swoop movement pick up the coins and drop them in my pocket.

I find this idea of calculating whether an action is "worth it" fascinating. My Dad, who was a child in the depression and had to quit school to go to work to support his family, always picked up change. We use to chuckle as he passed a pay phone and notoriously checked the change slot for something left behind. While I don't go out of my way to check coin slots, I am observant and have no problem bending down to pick up some fallen change that has seemed to insignificant to many who pass it. It's not that I need the change on the floor or the deposit from the can to get by. It's more just a question of not going out of the way to waste.

Throwing things away is too easy and that can include money.

In my world, I make observations as we all do and while I know they are not necessarily a trend, they seem to be a pattern. There are people who tend to waste more than others and that behavior is not routed in just a single action.

What is the value at which someone will plug in and acknowledge that a simple act it is worth their action?

I know someone who over 8 months put any loose change he found on the street in a jar and at the end counted up almost $30. I think most of us would bend over to pick up a 20 and a 10 if it were loose on the street. I was at a casual church event recently that served soda in cans and rather than put the finished cans aside or throw them in the numerous blue recycle cans around they were thrown in the trash. I grabbed a plastic bag at the end and quickly collected 25 cans that I easily took the next time I went to the store and donated the cash. I not only reduced what was going to be trashed, I also got to give some money to a good cause that can use it.

Yes, I am an avid recycler and have no problem packing a soda can in my bag to bring home to cash in for the deposits later or collecting plastic water bottles at game to toss in the recycle bins. I have been told by at least one person that they felt "shamed" because I'll make a point of picking up recyclables at an event and their instinct is to just toss the stuff and be done with it or they think its weird that I'll stop to pick up a coin. My actions made them feel guilty at home when they threw these things in the trash.

As I do this quietly and never call someone else on it and don't get carried away, I really consider it their problem. I figure that if my actions make them think twice about tossing out something that with no additional effort can be recycled or walking by a coin that they could donate or use........o well.