How do you make small money? \ stacker news ~Personal

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720 sats \ 37 comments \ @cryotosensei 14 Jan Personal_Finance

My country has a paper and cardboard recycling program. I take advantage of this and stack all the waste papers and cardboard boxes at my house. Then, when I bring my child out for a walk, I will carry all these materials in my backpack and deposit them in the recycling material nearest my house.

Guess operational costs must be increasing because I used to get 6 cents per kg of recycled materials. Subsequently, the rate got reduced to 5 cents per kg. With the arrival of 2024, our GST has risen by one percentage point, but I only earn 3 cents per kg of recycled materials. I’m a bit dismayed, but it is what it is. And I’m doing this to inculcate the habit of recycling in my child, so there’s no denying the psychological dividends.

How are you making small money in your life besides stacking sats? I would love to know.

https://m.stacker.news/12151

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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @Caleb 14 Jan

Isn’t most recycling both bad for the environment and / or run by the mob or heavily subsidized. It’s cheaper and less polluting to mine virgin material and there’s very little you can do to recycle most things. With cardboard, you make a huge mess cleaning it up and shipping it everywhere to make inferior products.

I thought the only thing truly useful to recycle is aluminum and gold in electronics.

25 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 14 Jan freebie

Bingo. Here's a couple articles on the truth about recycling that I mentioned in this post, on the benefits of frugality vs recycling: The Benefits of Frugality vs Recycling:

###################################### ...Also I appreciate the articles from @nullcount on recycling: https://www.insider.com/mit-research-andrew-mcafee-says-recycling-is-useless-2019-10 https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled Bottom line, almost all "recycling" is a pointless, money and energy wasting exercise. Though people will still look askance at you for rejecting it, because it's a part of the eco religion.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Thanks mate! Will read these articles to arrive at a more informed opinion

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

I think coming from Singapore, if we don’t practice recycling, we won’t have enough space to bury our waste materials. Our landfill will be depleted of space in the immediate future (I can’t recall offhand which year)

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 14 Jan

A friend and I would round up cans from all over the town we lived in and get some money from the aluminum recycling center.

I wonder if the reduced payouts are related to China not accepting as much recycling anymore. That was a big issue for American recyclers.

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

You know what? That sounds like a question I should email the company. 2 cents reduction is quite a lot!

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @riberet19 14 Jan

I think it is very good that certain countries pay for recycling, in my country that is not done, what I do to earn some extra money is buy and resell things in online marketplaces, I have been doing it for a while and if you are consistent it pays off

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Kudos to your drive n discipline! We have online marketplaces too, but I cannot fathom just managing all these customer queries and complaints lol

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @gmd 16 Jan

Credit card points. I know it's looked down upon here but if you don't use them in the US everyone is getting a 2% discount on life at your expense. Unfortunately the poor are victimized.

I use citi cards (double cash and costco visa) then pay off using Fold card via Paypal for extra 0.5% in sats back (used to be 1% and higher but sadly was nuked) for ~2.5%-3.5% spend back.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 17 Jan

Getting cashback in the form of sats is so invigorating. I can relate somewhat since I get sats cashback whenever I buy gift cards from Bitrefill haha

30 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby 14 Jan

Hopefully one day you will get sats back for recycling instead of cents.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @kurszusz 14 Jan freebie

Hmmm mate... You gave me a brilliant idea!

In my country (Romania) was introduced from 30th November 2023 a "money-back system" for PET, tin can and glass packaging product. It means we need to pay more 0.5 RON (around $0.12) for every product we buy and it is in these types of packaging (like Cola, water, milk, beer, etc...), and we can return these recipients in special "smart bins" to get our money back.

In my city thy system (but in another way) was implemented much sooner (around 2 years ago)... we got 1 bus ticket (6 RON value) for every 15 recycled recipient. So, my city have an open minded city management.

Based on your comment, I will talk about one of my good friends (who is city councilor) to talk with mayor about the possibility to develop this money-back system, and implement the possibility to get our money back in satoshis ;)

I think it is not very difficult and costly to implement this system...

What do you think about?

Btw...here is the "smart bin" who get us money back :)

https://m.stacker.news/12217

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Wow I hope this idea works out! Keep us posted

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

I hope so but I doubt it. The average Singaporean is too skeptical of Bitcoin. Hope attitudes turn around

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @fm 14 Jan

My country has a paper and cardboard recycling program.

So cool. I have a on-going discussion with my friends/ neighbors.. here you get finned if you dont recycle. It’s a punishment instead of an incentive.

When i was a kid we had this system for glass and worked perfectly.. Nowadays its gone..

This reward system is way better

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Ya I think so. Humans respond better to rewards than punishment

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @fm 14 Jan

💯 agree

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @beorange 14 Jan

That is awesome. I've seen the same approach but for bottles. People drink the contents and later return the bottles for a few cents. Some people even pick the bottles in the street to get the money.

I've also seen the same for plastic bags.

I think this kind of thing should see more widespread use.

How are you making small money in your life besides stacking sats? I would love to know.

Many of these things could use sats (LN) to pay out, it would be a nice introduction to Bitcoin for many people.

For small money, I mostly receive a few stats for the content I produce online. But I will bookmark this discussion to gather more ideas.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Unfortunately Bitcoin is still not very well positioned in my country. We used to have Bitcoin ATMs but they are gone because it’s heavily packaged as a dangerous speculative asset by our mass media here haha

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lumor 14 Jan

Awesome that you get paid to recycle! How do the machines enforce that they receive the right input? Cameras, penalties, or just a baseline of honesty?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Thank you for the question! There is a surveillance camera, of course, and we need to use our mobile phone number to register for an account. That’s how we are held accountable haha

31 sats \ 1 reply \ @kristapsk 14 Jan

Posting on Stacker News. :)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

I notice that we stack roughly the same amount of sats 💪

11 sats \ 8 replies \ @chungkingexpress 14 Jan

Is this Singapore?

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Yes! How did you know?

11 sats \ 5 replies \ @justanumber 14 Jan

country phone code 65

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @justanumber 14 Jan

Also lifeline clothing singapore in the top corner :)

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

You guys are too good!

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @chungkingexpress 15 Jan

If we really tried we could probably work out the GPS location of this spot too.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @justanumber 17 Jan

This is exactly the kind of thing my teenager does all the time! XDDDD He's so good at it!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @chungkingexpress 17 Jan

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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @chungkingexpress 14 Jan

"SG" and the mix of Malay, Chinese, Hindi writing I guess!

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @satoshiplanet 14 Jan

I would do the same, recycling is cool, unfortunately there are no machines here, in Spain there is a pitiful monopoly in recycling in which a single company (ecoembes) gets all the cake