Making ends meet at Christmas… and every other day!
‘Yellow-top bin day’ has become a busy day for some since the introduction of the Container Deposit Scheme (CDS Vic) offering a modest financial reward for returning drink containers but it's a hard graft.
HOW are your finances looking in the run up to Christmas?
It’s a notoriously stressful time for many meeting expectations for family gifts and something special for the Christmas table.
But spare a thought for the hundreds of pensioners nationwide who face the challenge of making ends meet every week, and the efforts they need to go to just to get by.
Charlie Lester (not his real name) of Cowes on Phillip Island is one of them.
He has found a tough way to augment his income that a surprisingly large number of other pensioners in his neighbourhood have also adopted.
Charlie’s busiest shifts coincide with recycle (yellow top) bin day in his area when homeowners and businesses put out a cash crop of aluminium cans, glass and plastic drink bottles, cardboard drink containers and others with the 10c mark.
But it’s a hard graft.
What would you make out of collecting cans and bottles?
“About $50 to $100,” says Charlie.
What a week?
“No that’s a fortnight.”
Are there many others doing it?
“Yeah, dozens and dozens. The main problem is the time you have to wait at the Can Collect centre. Sometimes you have to wait hours while everyone else deposits their cans.”
It’s hard work. You have to collect 1000 containers just to make $100?
“Yeah, it’s not easy but it pays for my petrol,” he says with a smile.
I leave Charlie to his work, going through the bins outside a block of flats in Cowes.
He has a long-handle pincher tool which he uses to fish out the containers from deep down into the bin.
Blocks of flats with up to 10 yellow-top bins out front are relatively easy picking but he also does single bins in his area as well.
“I’ve got a bit of a circuit. The council picks up on different days,” he says.
There must be better ways to make a living but the efforts that Charlie and dozens like him on fixed incomes have to go to just to get by really gives you pause to consider the real meaning of Christmas.
And one of many local organisations that gets it is the Phillip Island Community and Learning Centre (PICAL) who not only offers a ‘Christmas Hamper’ support service, for those with no means to put something on the table and under the tree for family members, but also has the ‘Phil Dixon’ PICAL Pantry open year around to supply emergency and social food needs.
“It’s not just the pensioners, single-parent families, people in temporary financial difficulty or people with a disability who rely on the Pantry, we’ll also get students coming in who have enough for rent and bills but not much left over for food,” said a spokesperson for PICAL.
This year PICAL had more than 110 families registered for a Christmas Hamper, ahead of the closing date (tomorrow) of Friday, December 19, featuring all of the Christmas goodies like ham, bon bons, plum puddings, toys for the kids, something nice for mum. That’s a lot!
Imagine what their Christmas might have been like without PICAL, which survived its own financial challenges in October last year and continues to operate on a shoestring budget.
If you’re thinking of making a donation to a charitable organisation at Christmas, you don’t have to go past PICAL, a member of the Gippsland region's Neighborhood Houses Victoria organisation.
PICAL accepts donations of non-perishable food for its pantry, but also welcomes donations of much-needed cash, over the counter at 16 Warley Avenue Cowes or just as easily, online at https://www.pical.org.au where you can hit the ‘donate to PICAL’ button.
