Tallahassee city organizes can for cash recycling event to create awareness

Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida, has started a can for cash campaign to encourage recycling. The city will pay for every can a resident deposits as a part of its an annual recycling effort.

On last Saturday, November 17, the City of Tallahassee in collaboration with Keep Tallahassee Beautiful project held its annual Cans for Cash event. The city has been organizing this event for more than 20 years.

The purpose of this event is to reduce landfill waste and space in the city. People were paid 30 cents for each pound of cans they dropped off. On average, the event collects more than 1,000 pounds of used aluminium beverage cans each year. This year, the city was able to surpass that number.

The Recycle Coordinator of the City of Tallahassee said the focus on collecting aluminium cans is the key to cut down on landfill waste.

"To preserve natural resources also to that kind of material from going into the landfill which is expensive way to go, Aluminum is the most valuable material by pound that we recycle, so we really like to capture as much of it as we can," Paul Hurst, the recycling co-ordinator for the City of Tallahassee said.