This week was Bulk Waste Week in my township. What does this mean? It means that you can put on the curb whatever junk you have been collecting in your garages, sheds, attics, and basements and the garbage truck will come and smash it before hauling it off to a landfill.
Let me share with you some pictures of things that my husband and I saw on our morning run today.
I'm going to paint and try to reupholster the chair.
We will use the cooler - it is in perfect condition.
My daughter won't be ready for a bike for several years, so I'm going to sell this on Craiglist.
By next summer, my daughter will be old enough to play in the sand, so we'll be all set. Or the dogs will enjoy lying in the "pool".
We also saw lots of mattresses (one house had 4!), tires, electronic equipment including working televisions, luggage, a pair of roller blades, several shelving units, and miscellaneous other items that were actually junk. When there are so many options for people to dispose of what they do not want anymore, it disgusts me that people just consider this stuff trash and do not think about the unsustainability of their actions. In our town in Pennsylvania, there are the following ways that you can dispose of your unwanted items.
-Goodwill Accepts household items and clothes.
-Habitat for Humanity Accepts household applicances and construction materials.
-Craiglist You can either list items for "free" or sell them.
-We also have several other organizations in our area that are similar to Goodwill, like Pete's Used Furniture that will haul away your item for you. We also have a cool store in town called Freeze Thaw that takes old bikes and uses the parts to build new bikes. And there is always the good old yard sale/garage sale/boot sale where you can make a couple dollars.
I just wish that people would think a little more about the end destination of their unwanted items. I'm going to twist the old cliche "you better eat that because there are starving children in Africa" - there are also millions of people who do not have a bed to sleep on, so please reconsider putting four mattresses into the landfill to sit there forever. Yes, you can't ship them to Africa, but you can donate them so that they can continue to be of use to someone.
When I was running by all of these unwanted items destined for the landfill, I was thinking about a book I read recently called Visit Sunny Chernobyl by Andrew Blackwell. The author narrarates his visits to places such as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the "electronics-recycling wonderland" in China. Quirky title, serious topics, with a humorous slant. Otherwise who would want to read about these depressing places?
So I am now stepping off my soapbox. What is one of your creative ways of reusing/repurposing an item?