Mother Earth’s Garden

Dumpster Diving For Trees

by Rebecca on April 13th, 2007

I was very upset to find that a local business in our area would not allow you to recycle material they are throwing away. My father in-law goes around and collects scrap metal and recycles it. He approached a local business that he saw was throwing away quite a lot of recyclable material and tried to set up a working relationship where he would come pick up the material and recycle it for them, free of charge. Once something is thrown away, it becomes public property. This is why police can go threw some one’s trash to collect evidence with out a warrant. It was more a common courtesy that he asked. Letting the company know he was trying to do some good. The manager refused, all but yelling at him. The manager even went as far as to lock all the dumpsters to prevent him or any one coming and recycling anything in the dumpsters. The really sad thing is that this business is designed to help people. It was a Goodwill store. Now I know that Goodwill has some policy about giving things out of the dumpster, since they have to document all items that come into their store for tax purposes. But any business can right off donating materials to be recycled. It takes a bit of work. You have to track the monetary gain of the items you are donating, and if the material is scrap or trash, that can be a bit tricky. But for companies like Goodwill who have to throw out excessive amounts of unwanted material, the money can add up. The real problem was that it was just one man. What if it was an organization? Would they still refuse to participate in saving the environment? What if I got a group of volunteers, and we called ourselves “Dumpster Diving For Trees” and went around to local businesses and explained our purpose? It’s just their trash. They are throwing it away anyway. But instead of filling a hole in the ground with trash that won’t decompose over time and cause more pollution, we’ll go threw it and recycle what can be recycled. It would be a messy organization. But I think I like the idea. What are your thoughts?

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POSTED IN: Environment