BUCKET BRIGADE
And just where do all of those buckets that HRT uses in its daily work come from? Fortunately, we don’t have to buy most of them.
My nephew Tony rescues them before they make it to his dumpsters and donates them to us for reuse. We all know the drill: REDUCE, REUSE, & RECYCLE. There is a bit of preparation that needs to be done before we take them into the field; but it is well worth the work. Their lids have to be taken off (a bit of sawing). They have to be drained and washed. And as a last step, I cut a small piece from their old lids and I rivet it to the inside of each bucket so that the buckets don’t “vacuum stick” together when we stack them.
We get twenty or so of these gently used buckets twice a year from my nephew. Because we don’t have to buy them at the market price of $5 each, we can put that money into things we do have to pay for.
For those of you who don’t know, these plastic buckets breakdown in the harsh valley sun; becoming brittle in 3 to 5 years. We will be needing replacements for a long time.