tiredUnless maybe I crush all those soda cans I've been drinking from. Dad suggested I do that.
So today I got out the old mechanical can crusher, which we bought years ago to save space when we still had to bag up all our cans. It's got a big metal arm that maneuvers a piston that crushes the can; it takes less force if you push dents into the sides of the can first. It's supposed to be bolted to the wall, but we never bothered with that. Good thing, too, because when we didn't need it anymore, we were able to just stick it into a cupboard out of sight.
So today, I took it out for the first time in several years. It still works, yay! I made short work of all the soda cans in the green bin. Except I noticed it didn't really help all that much; the thing was still more than half full. Problem was all those plastic bottles. Especially those big 2-liter Pepsi bottles. Hmm, who do we know in this house who drinks Pepsi, eh Daaaaad? :}
I experimented with using kitchen shears to cut up one of the Pepsi bottles into smaller pieces. It worked, but it was difficult and messy. (Messy because the bottle was wet after I rinsed the Pepsi residue out.) I cut up another Pepsi bottle, and that empty gallon jug of drinking water; that took up a lot of room too.
Then I decided to try it the easy way: I put on my shoes and STOMPED on the rest of the Pepsi bottles; also the big orange juice jug, and a few other plastic bottles that were in there.
Now there's plenty of space! Of course, I'll probably have to do some more crushing after the next two weeks of drinking soda and orange juice.
