In the last few weeks, I’ve had people say to me “wow, saving cans … what a good idea … help your cat while helping the environment” as well as “what’s the point of saving cans? You’ve recycled more than 300 and that’s not even $20.”

Now, my thinking is more along the lines of the first comment. Save your cans and donate them to charity, in particular, to Wampi, to help us pay his staggering vet bills.

But there’s more to the story.

According to some statistics $500 million dollars worth of aluminum cans go wasted each year. This drives up consumer prices, fills up landfills, and creates a need for more aluminum which requires the mining of bauxite ore deposits. So much energy, so many resources! Recycling cans relies on natural gas and requires 95% less energy than the electricity needed with the making of new aluminum.

Still, those are some of the recycling facts, but in my heart I knew there was another reason I’ve asked people to recycle cans. It has to do with my belief that we all have choices in our lives.

Big choices, small choices, hard choices, easy ones.

After Wampi’s “accident,” so many people asked me if I was going to “put him down.” The thought horrified me. Here was this beautiful, sweet, otherwise healthy cat, whose life hung in the balance because some sicko threw him off the roof … and I didn’t have the money to pay for his surgery.

I was faced with a choice.

The easy choice would have been to put him to sleep. He’d be out of pain and I wouldn’t be faced with a $5,000 vet bill in addition to all the bills from just having a baby. The thought made me want to puke.

The harder choice – the right choice – was to approve Wampi’s surgery and find a way to pay for his recovery. I didn’t have to think through the choices, I knew I had to save him and I’d figure out a way to pay for it later.

Isn’t that what you would do if you were faced with the same choice for someone you loved? You would find a way and you would make it work.

When you decide whether or not to recycle those few cans, you are faced with a choice. Not an emotional one like the one I faced with saving Wampi’s life, but a complex one nonetheless.

By recycling those cans and plastic bottles you can help the environment, the nation’s economy -- and if you donate the proceeds to a charity of your choice -- you help others deal with the difficult, sometimes life-threatening choices they face. And it doesn't cost you anything.

Help a child, help a cat, help a shelter, help the tsunami relief effort, or help a neighborhood project. Whatever. Even one can makes a difference.

The choice is yours.