Trash Can Transporter

Here is an interesting idea submitted by one of my ezine readers, James Jenner:

Being 16, I needed a means to earn money that would not interfere with my school work and extra activities but would give me spending money for school supplies and other activities. In our neighborhood we have wheeled trash cans to place trash in for weekly pickup. The city law requires that they must be put out at the curb no sooner than 7pm the night before pickup and taken back in by 7pm the day of pickup. The homeowner is subject to a $200 fine if they are out too soon or left out too late.

Since many people were not getting them put up, I started offering a service where I would pull the can from the curb back up beside their house for $5/month. I printed flyers out on the computer and placed them on doors where the cans were still at the curb when I came home one day.

Right now most of my customers live between where I get off the school bus to home, so I simply do it as I walk home. At the end of the month I will leave a reminder with a preaddressed envelope where they can send the next months payment.

One customer, who works third shift, has even offered me $15 to put out and pick his up each week. With only 20 customers, I can make enough to pay for what I need each month, and my 2 sisters are picking up people who call from different parts of the neighborhood to be their customers. And the best part was it didn't cost anything to get started and a pack of envelopes has been my only expense.

(end of James' post)

I asked James a couple of followup questions:

How many customers do you have?
Do you have any trouble getting paid?

His reply: I started with 10 homes the first day of signups but just by word of mouth it was up to 20 at the start of my first full month of service and this is in just 5 blocks (from bus stop to home). Since I am starting to get questions from other parts of the neighborhood, my sisters are going to divide them up and start their own 'routes'.

I haven't had any problems on getting paid because of keeping the price low enough that anyone can afford my service. I put out the envelopes to send payment on the pickup day before the end of the month, so far all have arrived within the 2 weeks I allow (If it isn't here by the 2nd pickup week then their cart will remain on the street.)

I actually came up with the idea on a rainy day that my mom was complaining about having to dodge all the trash cans that were floating down the street!

I really like James' idea. In fact, in the area I live we have the same problem. If we don't get our trash cans wheeled back by a certain time we are subject to a $175.00 fine. James does this as a was to make some part-time money. But, in my neighborhood there are probably 1000 houses within about a 2 square mile area that use the roll out containers. You could probably get 100 or so of them to pay $10.00 a month for such a service. That's $1000.00 a month for work you only have to do once a week. You could also earn extra money by charging $5.00 -- $10.00 to clean, sanitize and deoderize the cans.