This sounds like a great idea however the cost of gas to drive around picking up the cans will put a huge dent in your bottom line. How about leaving a flyer on the outside of the mailbox saying: "do you throw away your deposit bottles? I can really use some of them. I have a lot of credit card debt and i'm trying to get out from under it. If you could please help me by returning them this week and sending just a portion of the money to my paypal account i would greatly appreciate it. Just 10 or 20 cans is fine. Think of how many you throw away each and every week." etc etc. if the people do this for you once, twice, or even 3 times or more you can just log into your paypal account and withdraw the money. You can even say you want to raise money for something else. Heck they may even give you 100% or more of the money they get from the cans. don't forget to tell them it is money they otherwise would have thrown away. This idea cuts your gas bill in half at the least because you drive around once to give the flier. You don't drive around the second time to collect cans and drive to store to cash them in. You just go home and wait for your paypal account to fill up. You can also post these signs in grocery store exit bulletin boards.

Go collect the cans and bottles. If I take them to the recycle place myself then I've done all of the work for you. Ya lazy #@$$

Funny.
It's that "you do the work and pay me" attitude is probably what put him into debt.
Why can't you WORK your way out of debt? Maybe sell the stuff you bought with those credit cards.
Deliver pizza.

Do a Google search for "dave Ramsey".