A Chilean boy has recycled enough cans to buy a Nintendo Switch and a copy of Breath of the Wild, according to an Instagram post from his sister, who had been helping him to collect them and take them to a recycling drop-off.
Benja, from Lo Prado, Santiago, collected cans over the course of 9 months, keeping track of how much he had earned and recycled in a notebook.
Console prices in South American countries are notoriously high — according to a 2020 survey from Paxful, Chile is the third-most expensive country to buy a PS5, and a Nintendo Switch costs roughly 61.4% of the average monthly salary, compared to 8.4% in the US and 15% in the UK.
...Which just makes the feat all the more impressive! It took 495.13kg of cans to reach his goal of buying the Switch and Zelda, but here's hoping that Benja won't have to start a serious soda habit to buy his next game.
Did Benja pick the right game? Is Breath of the Wild worth 9 months of can-collecting? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
Comments 57
Now that’s dedication! And BOTW? Does anyone even have to say anything?
He totally deserve it too for doing all that work. I remember when I had to plow five of my neighbors yards so to earn money just to get myself a GBA cause I want to play Castlevania: Circle of the Moon.
What a champ! Impressive! Hope he enjoys his Switch and BotW. He deserves it.
It's a shame the game box art is ruined by having the age rating right in the middle.
Good for him. Hopefully Nintendo catches wind of this story and sends him a eshop gift card for the DLCs. He's earned it!
@jump Lol it's a sticker on the sealed plastic wrapping, not the box on it's own, once you remove it you have your regular pristine game.
Absolutely brilliant
Amazing! I'm sure he'll enjoy it all the more
that's awesome
This is so wonderful!
What a nice story. I wish him many hours/months potentially years of enjoyment in Breath of the Wild.
Fair play. Well done.
Humbling to read
He is likely poor and this is someone to admire. That absolute dedication in order to buy something he really wanted!!! Hsve fun with BOTW bro!!!
Great story and I believe he picked a great game to start with!
He absolutely picked the right game to start his Switch journey!
(Chilenos or) Chileans are nothing if not dedicated. Good on him for working hard to achieve a goal (and one of the greatest games of all time).
Suddenly I feel like going for a walk....
Good for him though; he put in the time and effort and was rewarded justly. It's honestly awe-inspiring.
There’s nothing more admirable than dedication and hard work. I respect this person for that. I really hope he enjoys it, he certainly deserves it.
That's great to able to buy Nintendo Switch from recycled cans, but I wish he has interest on other Nintendo IP.
I worked 3 and a half years doing random jobs to get my first home computer, an Amstrad CPC 464 in 1984.
I also did a paper route in the snow and cold weather in NZ at 5am before school and got paid $12 a week.
I caught glandular fever and severe flu's doing it.
My hat goes off to him.
I know exactly how hard it can be.
Enjoy it.
Dang, that’s dedication. Glad he got a switch instead of another platform
I hope it brings him a lot of joy
@Freek 3 1/2 years for one computer? That is mighty impressive my man!
That's cool, glad he was able to get a Switch and BotW. Recycling money well spent. 👍
Felicidades!
That’s super cool!
@StefanN
Haha, yeah.
I badly wanted one and my parents couldn't afford one so I decided that I would get one myself.
It was hard but well worth it.
It feels so good doing it on your own and the best part was my parents couldn't threaten to take it off me as a punishment since I earned it myself.
😜
Huge respect. I hope he enjoys his time in Hyrule!
Ceeeeeelebrate good times, come on! do do do do dooo..
Wow! Such a nice story. It is the best game of the past 20 years. Well done!
Thank God he wasn't saving up for a PS5. This would end up a humanitarian issue.
Thanks for pointing out in the article how much a console costs relative to the money earned in the country, this helps to make people realize how wide is the gap between money value in other countries. I've seen some people spending an absurd amount of money (pre-ordering the same game twice in two places, buying Pokémon double-packs, etc) and complaining around here and other places that those who don't do that are too cheap, yeah, it's not as easy for everyone to buy games as it is for you. It's an important distinction to make.
Yeah that’s cool and all but he’s still got 900 Korok seeds to go
And great for the environment too! Well done that boy! Be great if Nintendo sent him some eShop credit as a reward
Such a heartwarming story and makes me really happy for him. He couldn't have chosen a better game and I hope it brings him hundreds of hours of joy. Also agree that I hope Nintendo notices this and sends him some reward.
Well, at least Chile is bringing positive news. 😛
Where did Nintendo Life see this story? Regurgitating other sites stories and not even giving them credit with a link. Am I surprised? 🤣
Not at all, it's typical of this site. And this is nowhere near the worst offence, this is mild by comparison. I've seen YouTubers do hard work and research on stories, only for this site to come along and post it like it was its own story.
Huh? This is nothing special. I'm sure a lot of us did odd-job and saved for consoles we wantedm I had to do odd-jobs for 5 months straight for my gamecube when I was younger.
But congrats. It feels good when that hard work pays off
It's time to stop using plastic bottles and use aluminium cans, or even better, glass bottles.
Plastic cannot be recycled, aluminium can be recycled infinitely, and glass bottles only need to be cleaned and refilled.
Shame that in poor countries like mine, recycling caught on thanks to poor people living from trash.
Wow, kudos to this man! Such a hard worker, any employer should want this kid!
@Specter_of-the_OLED
I remember when I had to plow five of my neighbors so to earn money just to get myself a GBA.
Very nice good job young man
That’s awesome! I bet he’ll get every single korok. But on a tangent, I do hope that’s just a plastic wrapper on his game and they don’t stamp that age rating right on the cover.
I am so proud of this young man! This should be applauded, but also should be a little reminder that a lot of us deal with 1st world problems (like getting all upset when games are delayed, etc etc.)
This guy lives in a poorer country and saved for 9 months to get what he wanted, and for a lot of us, we get upset that we can't have it now by driving down to the local store.
My grandma would remind me of this a lot when I was growing up and I would get all upset about something trivial not going my way. Before she escaped to North America as a little girl, she never had real milk (only whey) and most fruit was foreign to her. It either wasn't available or too expensive. So, when I would be all whiny about not finding the exact NES game I wanted at Toys R' US, she would kindly say something like, "yes, I remember being that outraged and upset that I couldn't have food for 3 days". Puts things in perspective!
Anyways, kudos to this kid for really working for and appreciating what he has!!!
I worked to buy my Switch too.
See you rounded up on the number there nintendolife. I don’t blame you, 500kg sounds a lot bigger than 495kg.
Good for him, he didn't turned to piracy. He will enjoy the console and game more than anyone of you.
I remember as a kid I have to save up months of pocket money just to buy a new game. I treasured and enjoyed that game more than any games I have today.
When you pirate games, you have hundreds of them installed, you won't enjoy them as much as something you work hard for - strange how the universe justified every actions and consequences.
It's a good thing he didn't waste it on 1-2 Switch.
@thedudeabides05 You realize this is Nintendough we're talking about right...? The company that shuts down anything they perceive might lose them 20 bucks, plus the switch tax on almost every game available elsewhere at usually half or less the price. If anything Nintendo will send him some advertisements and tell him to get back out there and collect more cans so they can get a few more bucks.
@Specter_of-the_OLED You had me worried for a second there wondering what you had to plow until I read the word yards.
Nice story, we are so spoiled here.
Plus he did something good for the environment! Great job!!!
Americans be (comparatively) rich! A standard Switch costs ~20% of my monthly income. Not salary, because I'm a wage slave. Anyway, good on this kid! Hard work definitely paid off. Enjoy, my dude
Ay yo, why is this news? That's pretty standard for a Latin American boy. You want your video games? You gotta work extra hard to get it. That's literally what i had to do to get the PS2 and GameCube back in the day.
@Serpo As someone who has dabble into those console modding sites (Y'all act like you don't support Piracy but you do) i can very much confirm that massive pirates, the ones who installs games into their systems in bulk don't actually enjoy, nor even play the games they install. They mostly wanna show them off, just treat those games like a number that goes up and up. It's honestly kinda sad.
@Maclanky390
It's called greed. Billionaires who has enough money to live a hundred lifetime still wants more money in their bank account.
To quote Forrest Gump: "There's only so much fortune a man really needs… and the rest is just for showing off."
Nice work! Great news story.
On a related note, i "collected" and recycled a lot of beer cans during lockdown...
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