Recycled!

A bale of mashed beverage cans that have been collected and sold to an aluminum recycling company. In this view we're seeing most of one side of a single bale. The bales -- each weighing about 700 pounds -- are stacked up in preparation for being sent to a smelting plant, where they'll be converted back to pure aluminum ingots. It -- the recycling, that is -- is a long and winding road. Mundane a business as it is, though, it provides opportunities for money to be made at various stages along the way. And eventually results in a cleaner environment, thank goodness.
Incidentally, based on a really rough estimate, one such bale may contain as many as 20,000 cans.