title: How to implement a live and persistent number counter on a site
body: <p>I have a client who recycles cans.  We're developing a new web site for them and they want a live "cans processed" counter on their site. The starting number (since they've been in operation for a while) will be around 50,000,000, and there's not an ending number.</p>
  
  <p>To get "process rate" we can average out the number of cans processed per year and get a time estimate such as "1 can per 10 seconds". But how would I implement a "persistent" counter, so that the counter doesn't start ticking off from a set value at page load/refresh?</p>
  
  <p>I'm a beginner with javascript and jQuery, but I do understand programming concepts and fundamentals, and I can read a script and figure out what's going on. Any ideas or suggestions would be very appreciated.</p>