Orang-U-Tongs LITE pick-up tool

I have been picking up litter since 1987 and help keep a 3-mile road clean. I love this light weight reacher and have been using the same one for a few years. It is great for picking up light weight items such as paper, aluminum cans and plastic bottles. If you are careful with it, it will last for years. I don't let anyone else use my reacher. It also works great for picking up pinecones.

I do beach cleanups, and am on my 15th Oran-U-Tong. All 15 broke in the same spot: at the bolt that attached the black handle to the shaft. The hole drilled there reduces the thickness of the shaft making it prone to snap when torqued. I now take new ones and duct tape steel dowels to the shafts as stiffeners to get a little more life out of them. But they still break even with all my experience at handling them. That's why I buy four at a time, not one. But i do keep buying them.

I bought some of these for our school's "litter patrol". They have lasted over a year now, of almost daily use. There is one issue where the internal portion of the lever wears against the plastic shaft, causing fatigue and eventual breakage, but a bit of duct tape over the hole makes it good as new. These are soooo much better than the Quik-Pik tools (which I purchased elsewhere). Those would break almost immediately. These are sturdy, heavy-duty plastic, and like I say we've been using them for over a year and only this week did the first one break. Very happy with this product.

The Orang-u-Tong Lite (or Rainbow Reacher) is a great lightweight reacher/trash pick-up tool, which offers lots of "bang for the buck". It is very light, but can do many reaching tasks. It can pick up little bits of paper from the floor and rug, thus keeping things tidy as you go. It handily picks up all those things you drop, from lids to papers. The simple design and light weight make it easy and even fun to use. The real key to good reacher use is practice and figuring the best way to grasp something - it may be necessary to shift an item around with the end of the tool to get it into a better position to grab it and pick it up. For instance, a wide TV remote may need to be nudged up on edge so it can be grasped by the top and bottom. Only thing keeping this tool from earning 5 stars is the narrow lanyard tab at the end of the handle. I would like to have a wider and smoother plug for the palm of the hand. Other than this, I have found the Lite/Rainbow reacher a very useful tool for the many light duty pick up and reaching tasks that come up every day. Get a bunch and keep them handy at home and work - your back will thank you, and your place will be tidier!