My Yorkshire grandmother used to say – “Where there’s muck there’s money!” and she is right. As part of my Yorkshire miser approach to life, I have started collecting bottles and cans from my children, and when I have enough, I take them to Containers for Change and have a load of fun feeding them into the machines.
This week my boot full put $24 in my account – enough to pay for the electricity to run my Tesla for 3 weeks.
Even better, I noticed a car follow me in to the recycling centre.
A young boy (about 10) and his mother got out of the car and came over to me and Tess (my tesla Model 3). “I’m so glad you turned in here, my son has been talking about your car all the way up the road.”
We had a great chat and he said he was definitely going to buy one when he had collected enough cans. At 10c refund a pop that’ll take a while.
A friend on Facebook recently shared this story –
Costs more to run my lawnmower than my car – I had to fill up a 10L tank for my lawn mower the other day, cost me $15.23. I got paid my quarterly power credit of $7 about a week ago, which includes all my car charging apart for some public charging of around $2. I did approximately 8000kms in that time. It’s sobering to think it costs me more to run my lawn mower than my car.
It was funny, I parked my TM3 outside the fuel station within sight of the teller, She asked me if I wanted a Frequent Fuel card after I paid for the fuel. Instinctively I laughed and said, “Are you serious?” and I pointed to my car and informed her my car doesn’t run on petrol.
In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, ARENA CEO Darren Miller made this point: “Once you’ve committed to that upfront cost, people will be pleasantly surprised at the low maintenance and the low operating costs of an electric vehicle. And the convenience, frankly, is something that people will really love.”
Let’s get the word out, you can pay for the running of your electric car with the refunds from your aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. That’s lots of environmentally friendly actions all in one.
David Waterworth is a researcher and writer, a retired teacher who divides his time between looking after his grandchildren and trying to make sure they have a planet to live on. He owns 50 shares of Tesla.
David Waterworth is a researcher and writer, a retired school teacher who continues to provoke thought through his writing. He divides his time between looking after his grandchildren and trying to make sure they have a planet to live on. He is long on Tesla.