Paper, Pop and Purpose
In 11th grade I quit piano lessons to save the planet. I was worried about acid rain, Burger King’s cattle in the Amazon, and saving the whales. There was plenty to do.
At the local chapter of Greenpeace, I showed up as an enthusiastic teenage volunteer, ready to chain myself to old growth redwoods, but was greeted by blank stares. No one knew what to do with a determined high schooler in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1989.
Undeterred, I started an environmental club at my school called E.A.R.T.H (Environmental Action for the Restoration of Today’s Habitats). Membership: me.
Our first act of environmental heroism? Recycling.
I distributed cardboard boxes labeled “Recycling,” in every classroom and encouraged my fellow students to toss their discarded paper in my box instead of the trash. Twice a week, after removing the used tissues and apple cores, I’d load up my ’72 Toyota Corolla, with paper and drive it all to the local recycling center (yes, this was before anyone even thought of picking up recycling). Students smirked. Teachers raised eyebrows. People thought I had a screw loose, but I was onto something.
The 10-cent Lesson
The breakthrough came when I added a box to the cafeteria labeled Aluminum and Glass Recycling. It sat right next to the garbage, clearly marked, and yet every day I watched kids casually toss their empty Dr. Peppers into a giant all-purpose trash barrel.
Fuming, I’d fish cans out—despite the snickers—and drop them into my bin to make a point.
My sticky, drippy box drew complaints from the principal, but I stuck with it until, slowly, miraculously, the tide began to turn. Kids started aiming for the recycling bin instead of the garbage. Cans piled up fast. Twice a week, my little Corolla was bursting with sticky bags of pop cans (yes, we say pop in Michigan).
You see, Michigan has a secret superpower: a 10-cent deposit on every can and bottle, and back then 10-cents was real money.
My First Real Return
At a special assembly, I stepped up to the podium to share what my club had accomplished so far. Holding up a certificate from the Rainforest Trust—a nonprofit that protects tropical ecosystems and endangered species—I told the entire school what their trash had achieved: I had collected $150 in recycling revenue (that’s 1,500 cans!) and used the money to preserve three acres of Amazon rainforest—forever—in our school’s name.
A slow clap turned into a loud roar, and suddenly every club wanted in on the cash grab. I was no longer the weirdo digging through garbage, but the baller who had unlocked a strategy for every club to raise money. From then on, each week a different group had the privilege of collecting cans (and paper) and hauling them to the recycling center to fund their projects. Moms and dads from the Junior Debate Club and Field Hockey team were stuffing minivans with recyclables because City pick-up was still years away. My solo mission had become a school-wide program—and recycling was now mandatory.
One Action, Many Outcomes
I learned something fundamental that year—something that still guides my work today:
Doing good in one area can drive good in another.
A simple act—saving a can from the trash—sparked a ripple effect. Environmental impact, financial reward, systemic change. That’s the kind of compounding value I look for in investments today: actions that serve multiple goals at once—climate resilience, financial return, and positive social impact.
And after that assembly, E.A.R.T.H. gained members, as more kids took up the cause. We educated ourselves on the issues, wrote letters, collected signatures, planted trees, and when we could — collected off the school’s recycling.
Turns out, my first investment strategy wasn’t made of stocks or bonds. It was made of bottles and cans.
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