This is a story for everyone who says that recycling and reuse cost too much and aren’t worth the effort, and for everyone who has to deal with those folks.
Newton is a suburban city, population about 85,000, less than ten miles from downtown Boston. When the City opened a new high school in August 2010, it reused and donated locally as much furniture as possible from the old school, but was still left with more than 4,000 items of surplus furniture and equipment that needed to go away. Most...

Boston.com recently published a couple of anti-recycling columns by Jeff Jacoby. I can’t bring myself to write down the link. If you want you can find them easily enough. They’re standard diatribe. Recycling is a pain in the neck. Recycling costs more than throwing stuff away.

Backed by standard sources for persons with Mr. Jacoby’s point of view: The Heartland Institute (Wikipedia: “The Heartland Institute questions the scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that global...

There is nothing we throw away that is not a resource.

Paper – To make paper we kill trees, hurt the land, and damage ecosystems. Almost 100% of paper can be recycled. The small fraction that can’t be recycled can be composted or burned to create energy – renewable, carbon-neutral energy.

Plastic – Plastic is highly refined oil. On a planet where wars are fought over oil, it’s idiotic to throw plastics away, which we do by the millions of pounds every day. The best...

When Is Trash Not Trash?


Q: When Is Trash Not Trash? A: When It’s Recyclable Mixed Debris.

I just returned from a few days of site visits on college and corporate campuses. I found a very common situation: open top roll-off containers that were being used for the mixed debris from on-site construction and cleanup projects. When I complimented their mixed debris recycling, I got the same response almost every time. “The roll-off is trash, not ...

My Dad was one of the smartest people I know. It took me a long time to figure that out.

I recycle stuff for a living. And my Dad always said, “That’s the wrong word. What you’re doing is reclamation. Reclaiming raw materials.” He was right on the money. The raw materials that come from recycling are the most important raw materials on earth.
We’ve all seen the pictures of Earth taken from the Apollo moon trips: a small blue...