Monday, March 08, 1999

He finds gold mine in garbage

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Can collecting a hobby that benefits others

BY RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Gordon Pickworth has collected cans for 11 years, raising $38,000 for charity. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        LEBANON — More than once, travelers at highway rest stops have offered Gordon Pickworth a sandwich. Watching him burrow into trash bins, they think he's hungry or homeless.

        Instead, he's weeding through Big Mac wrappers and cigarette butts to turn trash to treasure.

        During the past 11 years, he says, he has recycled $38,000 worth of aluminum cans found in trash bins, garbage cans and ditches and from collections by neighbors, schools and businesses.

        At recycling prices from 19 cents to a high of 54 cents a pound, that's about 5 million cans, by Mr. Pickworth's calculations.

        He has collected 90 tons, the equivalent of 15 adult African elephants.

        And he has given every penny to charity.

        At least a dozen kids have been able to continue attending Lebanon Presbyterian Church Day Care on scholarships donated by Mr. Pickworth.

        Children whose parents couldn't pay Little League fees can play because of Mr. Pickworth.

        Money from the recycled cans has gone to the Special Olympics, Warren County's rape and abuse shelter, and people Mr. Pickworth meets at the trash bins who are homeless.

        What began as a way to cope with boredom after a physician-imposed retirement has become a full-time vocation. “Everybody calls me the Can Man. Not too many people know my name.”

        Those who do praise him.

        Mr. Pickworth “is about the only person who gives freely to us,” said Vurrna Campbell, director of the day care. “We love him.”

        He shrugs off any praise.

        “I'm big on little kids,” Mr. Pickworth says of the 40 hours or more a week he spends collecting cans. “I do it for the great satisfaction I get out of it.”

        When not bending down to pick up cans, Mr. Pickworth has had six angioplasties, open heart surgery, two back operations and one for a hernia.

        Mr. Pickworth guards his age carefully, teasing friends that it falls somewhere between 54 and 81.

        He has been married for 46 years to Carole, and his three sons, who were his only hobby until can collecting started, range from 45 to 41 years old.

        Mr. Pickworth leaves home at 5:45 a.m. three days a week to beat other recyclers and sort through residential blue bins. He empties the cans, crushes and bags them.

        He built a shed to store cans and bought a truck to haul them to the recycler.

        Mr. Pickworth, a former fleet administrator for Middletown, has helpers. Schools and factories collect for him. Neighbors leave bags of cans at his driveway. Sometimes, Mr. Pickworth can tell which house dropped them off by the type of pop.

       

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