tried this as well.....had the exact same idea and even bought a can crusher since uncrushed cans build up very quickly. save for last summer and march-april of this year. finally after having two large lawn bags full of crushed cans, on a saturday morning, i wished the wife/kids farewell (was planning to travel with my riches), loaded the bags into the car and drove 20 minutes to the closet recycling center in indy.
to be nice, let's just say the center is in the hood (
http://bit.ly/Oode7l). the place with packed with others recycling a twelve pack of empty cans to engine blocks. fortunately an older gentleman with no teeth explained that i could not walk up with the cans in a bag, but had to place them into a rusted out shopping cart. he helped me find 3 carts, which barely contained my cans.
no i am standing in line trying to move 3 carts over gravel. the smallest bump and cans would coming pouring out, so move, stop, walk around the carts, pick up cans, wait....this continued for 45 minutes.
finally, got the carts on the scale (with the help of the same gentleman). 80 lbs!!!! woo hoo, i'm rich bitch. they hand me an atm card and i have to walk 20-30 yards to the ATM. withdraw my money.......$40 f***ing dollars.
so, saturday morning gone, 40 mile roundtrip (suburban averaging 13 mpg), friends making fun of me for being a treehugger, and not enough money to purchase enough beer to last the weekend on the boat.
never again
i still save my cans, but now donate them to the "can lady" (
http://www.indystar.com/article/2012...-has-kids-mind).