Funny you should mention. I've just been researching this topic. In addition to Freecycle and Buy Nothing, consider Misfits Market misfitsmarket.com, a subscription service for “ugly” organic produce that has rescued over 65 million pounds of food unwanted by grocery stores due to cosmetic imperfections or oversupply. There's San Diego based Kitchens for Good, kitchensforgood.org, a nonprofit catering company that trains 100 jobless people with barriers to employment like a prison record, rescues 70,000 pounds of food waste and prepares 250,000 free meals for the homeless and hungry each year. It's like DCCentralKitchen.org. Try Package Free, https://packagefreeshop.com/, where you can buy 100% package free and plastic free goods.
Our computers put tons of CO2 into the atmosphere but the Web Neutral Project helps hundreds of companies each year neutralize their digital carbon footprint through solar-powered web hosting, The company eliminates around 4,000 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
Must fly somewhere? Oh, damn, what a load of emissions. The goodtraveler.org lets you buy offsets that support actual good projects like refrigerant recycling, old growth forest protection, HFC reduction, a campus clean energy project, etc.
Must buy clothes? Tentrees.com clothes are made with sustainable materials and each product comes with a unique code for the ten trees that will be planted, thanks to that purchase. Buyers can use that code to track where the trees will be planted. To date, the company has planted more than 50 million trees worldwide.
Got to remodel your house or kitchen? Both coasts have hundreds of companies using recycled materials that will go to landfill if you don't use it. This house has granite kitchen counters and wooden cabinets that were headed for the dump.
Finally, you can join or donate to many ecorestoration projects around the world; I belong to the Society for Ecological Restoration.
Thanks for the thoughtful resource list, Martha. We also have a community nonprofit that has everything from clothing to books to household goods and furniture for all the families with children in our low income Title 1 schools. All donated goods are posted on a private online group for parents and teachers to "shop" for free. Families and college students can also get set up as sellers and start a small business to support themselves. There are some innovative programs operating with like-minded people sharing our overabundance of stuff and making a difference.
Thank you kindly, Donja-Marie. Would you be available to tell me a little more about your community nonprofit? It seems like a model, and maybe there are similar groups around the country/planet.
Of course, and it was designed with the objective of being a model in order to be replicated and reflect the community it serves. My Mother's Voice is based in the Sacramento, CA region, evolving and testing programs since 2006. Early on, there was a need for translators so our immigrant populations could be supported and that has helped build trust. If there are similar groups in the USA or globally, we haven't connected, but that's not unusual in the not for profit world. Underfunding is a common thread. If you would like to learn more, you can message through social media or email through the (rueful smile here, needs to be updated) website. Communication is welcomed.
You and I, Benjamin, collect the same sort of "stuff." It hurts my soul to know that many of the hundreds of books I own will end up in the landfill. The book sections of thrifts have shrunk way too much since electronics roared in like a cyclone, disrupting the peaceful quiet life I used to live. But with Rethuglicans campaigning to match the society that burned people at the stake for having values way different than theirs, it seems life is going to get even worse for many. One reason to be be glad I'm old and tossing all the paper I can bear to discard right now. Got to finish soon, before wingers use it to burn me b/c I believe in science, that earth warms, decency, and democracy.
Ah, Mr. Reich, you remind me of my very favorite client ever.
Back in 1989, California passed Assembly bill AB 939 that required cities and counties to reduce waste going into landfills by 50%. The first target date was 1995, with reduction of 25%, followed by the 2000 year target date of 50%. AB 939 had teeth in it too – up to a $10,000. a day fine for jurisdictions and waste management companies that failed to comply. Well, that got people’s attention.
Three men in our rural community put their heads together to solve the problem. Paul Benz owned the company that picked up our trash, Jerry Palmer was an attorney with an engineering background, and Joe Broadbent was a mechanical engineer with superman building experience.
First, they looked at cities and counties making people sort their own trash – then sending different trucks to pick-up recyclables. The cost of labor and trucks making three runs per week, instead of one, made the scheme financially impossible. Besides, when faced by $10,000. a day fines, expecting people to separate their own trash was a gamble – at best.
Next, they looked at the recyclable market. While there was money there – and tons of potential for even more money as recycling got going - they needed a lot of bulk and clean waste to capture it. Again, counting on people to separate their own trash risked huge losses in recycling dollars.
The real problem was in knowing how much of the community’s waste stream was actually recyclable. So, they started dumping all the trash they picked up into a big yard and sorting through it. Week after week, they sorted through trash – a horrible stinking job – but they finally got themselves some hard numbers. They also got themselves some practical experience. Even better, they got themselves a solution. They called it a Material Recovery Facility.
Just pick up trash like always, bring all of it to the MRF (called the Merf) and dump it in on the ground. Inside the MRF, workers and machines would sort through it and every recoverable material would be sent to separate places (aluminum was sent to one bin, steel to another, stainless steel to another and so on). They could separate plastics, by colour and type, fabric, electronics, paper, cardboard, etc. Green waste was separated from wood waste made with toxins (MDX and MDF boards).
To make it work, they needed to design and build as many machines as they could think of and train workers to do the rest (the Merf created 70 new jobs the first year alone). Workers were given good health insurance and a regular immunization schedule, plus required check-ins (if you weren’t up to date on immunization, no more work for you).
They built an enormous chipper that could handle green waste as big as logs. They sold the green chip for mulch and donated tons of it to schools and parks. They sold the wood waste (with toxins) for dirt roads (which are all over rural areas).
The garbage trucks dumped their haul on the floor and a forklift driver spread it out. Large pieces were pulled out, then the pile was moved to the assembly line above the work floor. There on the assembly line each worker pulled out their assigned parts of the recyclables, while huge magnetic pulled the metals out.
In one building appliances were pulled apart, and the different parts sorted. Large waste, like couches, mattresses, doughboy pools and bicycles were pulled apart, sorted and broken down into smaller pieces. Mattress springs were recovered and sold for scrap metal, the foam was separated and sent to one company, the fabric covering was sold to another company. They hired two people whose entire job was selling their recyclable materials.
Great plan, with three challenges. Challenge one: raising the capital to build the MRF. Challenge two: to keep people from dumping stuff directly in the landfill without sorting it first they needed to control the landfill. Challenge three: they needed more trash to make it a viable business. The only way Benz could solve the city’s recycling mandate, was to solve the county’s problem at the same time. And that meant politics – and not small town politics either.
Raising the capital was the easy part. AB 939 had provided funding to help jurisdictions get started on meeting the recycling mandates. In exchange for a percentage of the profits, annually and in perpetuity, the City used their share of AB939 funds to make a loan to Benz. Benz put everything he had on the line and raised the rest of the money and built the MRF.
Within 3 years, Benz was recovering as much as 82% of waste that had once gone, directly, into the landfill. This extended the life of the landfill by at least 20 years and saving a fortune. Even better, the costs of running the landfill dived, enabling him to invest even more in the MRF. He was also selling the recyclables and turning a profit. In five years, Benz had paid off the loans, saving himself a fortune in interest.
Getting hold of more trash was the hard part. That meant Big politics, because gigantic corporations competing for this nation’s trash business is brutal (think Chicago and New York). Unfortunately, once a public service is privatized, big corporations start weeding out the small competitors until they own the entire darned thing.
If trash was allowed to become a monopoly, corporations could charge customers any price they pleased. Kern County is 8,143 square miles big with less than a million residents. In 2005, the Congressional Research Service reported our region is worse off, in almost every socio-economic indicator than Appalachia (meaning we are poor). Not one city, or community could meet the waste reduction mandate alone. Alone, we were too small and too poor.
Benz sent a proposal to the county. If he could have the contract for waste disposal on the east side of the county, he could meet the mandate. The county was thrilled with the deal. Without spending a dime, or hiring a consultant, or increasing staff, the county could meet one of the most expensive state mandates ever. Better yet, meeting the mandate in only half the county, meant everyone on the west side of the county could just keep dumping waste in the landfill and the county would still meet the 50% reduction mandate. The county took the deal.
Yup, Mr. Benz became a rich man. Let me tell you, home-grown millionaires are a whole lot better than millionaires and CEOs who live somewhere else (think Walmart, or any big corporation that extracts community dollars and pays taxes somewhere else). There wasn’t anything in our community, Benz did not donate to, build or pay for all by himself. For instance, our community is huge on soccer. When our parks and school district could not meet the need anymore, Benz donated the land and built a park with seven professional sized soccer fields for our kids. He donated money, labor, skills and equipment to every school, organization and event in our community. He donated to local political campaigns too – and if Paul Benz believed in you, he made darned sure the political parties could not outspend you. We were all richer because Benz saved us money on trash, and richer still because Benz wanted a nice community for his family, so we got one too.
Over the years, I did a lot of work for Benz, and he was the fairest, most honest client I’ve ever known. Every once in a while, I asked him for a donation for something at my kid’s schools, or the arts or our revitalization program and he sent a check, no questions asked. One day I asked him why he did that. Paul said it was because he’d heard that I stood up for him when he wasn’t even there. I remembered the meeting he was talking about. A new county supervisor had made some disparaging remarks and I’d corrected him - with the facts.
As things turned out, California cities and counties failed to meet the 25% mandate. By the time, 2000 rolled around, they’d stopped trying and started complaining. The California Assembly repealed the bill. Without recycling, new landfills would be needed, very soon, and our county’s waste management department quadrupled its staff and funding.
Free from “regulation” Big corporations in pursuit of “new” customers turned aggressive. In the mid-2010s, Benz retired and lawsuits followed. Soon enough, Waste Management (America’s largest corporate waste hauler) took over Benz’s territory, closed the Material Recovery Facility raised trash collection and landfill dump fees, required customers to separate their own trash and once again, dumped trash straight into the landfill.
After 45 years in business, I’ve learned that America’s “Too Big to Fail Syndrome” is our biggest problem. The truth is that any company that is Too Big to Fail, is in reality Too Big to Succeed.
The American economy was built by quick and nimble small business owners. Instead of “conserving” old ways and avoiding regulation, small businesses are run by innovative people who compete by adapting to change quickly and economically. Instead of the CEO’s of global corporations, it was people like Paul Benz, Jerry Palmer and Joe Broadbent who built the great American economy and our once prized middle class. Moreover, small business people love their work more than money.
Outstanding narrative. Many thanks. When I was committing journalism for a living I had a rap sheet literally as long as my arm on Waste Management Inc. At one point I busted them for having a company officer on the California Solid Waste Management Board. He protested mightily to my editor that he was breaking no laws. This was not the case. Of course. My hat is off to Misters Benz, Palmer and Broadbent.
My brother runs the transfer station on Lopez Island, WA (Lopez Solid Waste). They have a "Take It or Leave It" area of tables where they set out stuff in good condition that would otherwise be thrown out. Lots of valuable items are picked up and reused from there. Lopez Solid Waste has won awards and Gov. Inslee even visited once.
The basic problem with reuse (it's not recycling) of already produced products is that it will be opposed by the capitalists and therefore will not happen. We have an example in front of us --- soda bottles. Up until the 1960s soda came in glass bottles that were returned to the store which returned them to the soda company. Every town had a bottling plant where these bottles were refilled and resold. This is reuse. Then companies decided to save money and use plastic instead of reusable glass. We arrived at the typical capitalist solution. What to do about the plastic which was now garbage, make the problem the consumer's. Enter the environmentalists. They pointed out that more energy was consumed with the plastic approach than the reuse approach (Hanlon at Uof I Urbana). They demanded something be done about the accumulating plastic in landfills.
So we got the typical liberal "reform". Recycling. Corporations still got to use plastic but the public could return its plastic bottles as it formerly did its glass bottles. In typical American fashion, each locality was allowed to pass different legislation as to what was recycled, how much you got back as your deposit, where to take it, and all of these approaches differed state by state. A now bar coded plastic bottle in Mass cannot be taken to New York even if bought from the same chain retailer. Of course you couldn't bring the bottle to a different retailer even if it was the same brand and God Forbid the producer of the sugar water should in any way be inconvenienced by having to standardize the plastic used in the bottle. Let the consumer figure out what the numbering scheme meant. And at the dump where most of that plastic ended up, there was nothing to do but dump it into the landfill. Even though plastic is now everywhere in the environment. We breathe it, we eat it, nothing is done to systematize this process. Once again God Forbid that any corporation should be held accountable for producing all of this waste. You the consumer are the problem.
I only mention this because I believe this is what drove very nice educated bourgeois people to become socialists in the 19th Century. It was of course utopian socialism. A very popular book from the 19th Century by Ralph Bellamy called Looking Backward gives you the general idea of the popular vision.
All they wanted was a better way to provide stuff.
Yes! In the 1960s there was a serious movement away from consumerism—- embracing the idea of finding the simplest way to accomplish a task, least impactful way to live. Both collectively and individually, people moved back to nature. I have friends who lived off the grid, built their own solar systems, downsized and super insulated their homes and even today in their old age make minimal demands on the environment for heat electricity etc. They have gardens and join cooperative organic farms. The press called this being a hippie but it really derived from a back to nature movement in the 1930s. It is a fundamentally better way to live.
I do believe that this minimalism is something young people have embraced again. I would encourage them to move toward less stuff and more reuse.
Unfortunately all these ideals and individual practices while they are better ways of living and allow you to avoid substituting consumption for living, come up against the reality of our capitalist economy.
For example if the water coming out of your well or tap is contaminated with some chemical used to coat frying pans, you then have to buy bottled water. You cannot escape capitalism. It is relentless.
I think Bernie realized this when he moved to Vermont in the 1960s.
None of our individual efforts can be successful unless we change the system that is destroying our planet.
I know almost nothing about the recycle-reuse status of the old "socialist" economies of the mid-20th century. I wonder how the USSR and its economic sphere in eastern Europe addressed this topic. Do you know whether they made any progress in reuse-recycle -- or were they just as messy as we are?
I’m glad you put socialist in quotes there. The Soviet system was a command and administer economy. The economists I know refer to it as a state capitalist economy. There was a great deal of hoarding in production so anything of value wasn’t thrown away. They made the same mistakes we did
With environment of which Chernobyl is a good example. They never had our level of consumerism so they didn’t thoroughly pollute the environment with plastic. Nothing to praise there except that the Russians were not afraid to speak their minds after a few vodkas once Stalin was in the grave.
One other point. Before WW2 there was less stuff. So a better way to provide stuff meant a more equal distribution of the necessities of life and a more efficient production of them. The only people engaged in conspicuous consumption were rich people. My grandmother expertly repaired my jeans whenever they developed a hole in them. Her mother made her own clothes from bought cloth and patterns. So the idea of less stuff wouldn’t have occurred to those who had no excess of stuff to begin with.
I collected a few old Coke bottles when I sorted the empties during a few weeks' work at the old Oakland plant next to the collapsed Cypress Freeway. In the post WWI era, the cities of origin were stamped on the bottom, along with the year--like coins! I have one from Baltimore, made in 1923, with glass so thick it would knock over a brick wall ..
Goodwill is a company that gets its products for nothing and then sells them at a profit. The Salvation Army gets its products for nothing and then gives them away to the needy. You should be aware of the difference.
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.
Goodwill Industries International works to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work.
Salvation Army donations are part of their charity. Goodwill is primarily a work-related human services agency. Its sales outlets are job training sites and its revenue goes to help support its social service program. While it has revenue from its sales, it does not profit any individuals directly.
There is ALREADY a great way to get and receive free usable stuff--Freecycle. I live in the UK and I have been able to find takers for every item I've put out on Freecycle--hamster and bird cages, a 20 year old sink, microwave, stove and other appliances; children's toys of every description, dog beds and more. I highly recommend not throwing anything away unless you've tried to Freecycle it!
20% of medical costs are from high insurance overhead ($50 mil for CEOS, + clerks for denials) and $20 for waste (over diagnosis and over tretment to play it safe), We could cut our costs similar to most of Europe, which has plans similare to Obamacare with no contingincy legal fees (35% of awards for malpractice).. In USA health care costs 18% GNP, and Europe and Canada 11%. in Amedrica hospitals costs 33%, doctors 26%, long term care 13%, drugs 9%, administration 8% (4% in Europe).
When my brother-in-law lived in Heyward, CA, he told us that one weekend a year everyone would put stuff by the sidewalk on a Friday evening. The city was going to come around on the weekend & pick it up; but most of the things left out were picked up by other neighbors. People got rid of what they didn't want, then went around the neighborhood looking for "finds". Sounds similar to these new apps you mention.
My husband and I moved x country this year. We gave away, sold, trashed a shocking amount of stuff. Now we need: the posthole digger, terra cotta planters, tall glass vases, industrial vacuum cleaner. . we have spent a few thousand dollars replacing things we couldn't afford to tote cross the country. Felt like Ma and Pa Joad.
great idea. I hope that everyone would bring used but not broken items to Goodwill Industries or the Salvation Army. we do not need it and hopefully some that does that might not be able to afford a new one will be happy to have it. I keep a corner in the house or garage as a holding spot and then take all items in when the size is enough for a trip to the drive thru drop off at Goodwill. I do not think that putting items at the end of a street is a good idea. they might get rained on , and the people that actually need the items not come into your neighborhood to find them. if you want to avoid the trip to goodwill, they also have a free pickup service that you can schedule. I love the idea of helping though that might have less in this current brutal version of capitalism. Imagine if you had to live on $8 $11 or $15 an hour.... would you appreciate the help from donations ????
Freecycle.org is a great way to find what you need or offer something you no longer want in your local area -- I also enjoy donating usable and nearly new items to local thrift stores.
Our daughter lives in Israel. The streets of Tel Aviv have clothes and furniture, really anything you need to pass on to anyone that needs it. Things are picked up rapidly after placed there. We need to provide a network that allows easy way to do what you discuss
Last year I happened to see a cartoon. I don't even remember where I saw it. The picture was of a man on his deathbed surrounded by his loved ones. The dying man is saying, "I wish I had bought more crap". I think of this every time I am tempted to buy something I don't really need. I love the idea of recycling "stuff".
.. and then there was the NYer cartoon of Ralph driving his Caddy through the pearly port, to the aside, 'Well, I guess you can take it with you." (R. is also smoking a big cigar, so Heaven as an alternative to death may be problematic.)
I have been recycling "Stuff" for years. I never sell anything that I no longer need; I donate everything I no longer need. When I moved up to Alaska from San Diego, I gave away my car to a person that I knew needed a car replacement very badly but could not afford to buy a newer car. She is still driving that car. During that period while getting ready to make my big move, I also gave away all of the furniture and additional items that I knew I could live without. I never saw so many happy people that came to claim those items for free. It made me feel really good to know that all of the things that I gave away for free were making someone else' life better for them. Today, living in my new home where I have been for seven years now, I still take anything that I don't want or need any longer to Good Will or the Salvation Army. Donating makes me feel good knowing that someone else, somewhere else has an item they need that does not cost them anything, especially if they can't afford to purchase what they really need.
Funny you should mention. I've just been researching this topic. In addition to Freecycle and Buy Nothing, consider Misfits Market misfitsmarket.com, a subscription service for “ugly” organic produce that has rescued over 65 million pounds of food unwanted by grocery stores due to cosmetic imperfections or oversupply. There's San Diego based Kitchens for Good, kitchensforgood.org, a nonprofit catering company that trains 100 jobless people with barriers to employment like a prison record, rescues 70,000 pounds of food waste and prepares 250,000 free meals for the homeless and hungry each year. It's like DCCentralKitchen.org. Try Package Free, https://packagefreeshop.com/, where you can buy 100% package free and plastic free goods.
Our computers put tons of CO2 into the atmosphere but the Web Neutral Project helps hundreds of companies each year neutralize their digital carbon footprint through solar-powered web hosting, The company eliminates around 4,000 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
Must fly somewhere? Oh, damn, what a load of emissions. The goodtraveler.org lets you buy offsets that support actual good projects like refrigerant recycling, old growth forest protection, HFC reduction, a campus clean energy project, etc.
Must buy clothes? Tentrees.com clothes are made with sustainable materials and each product comes with a unique code for the ten trees that will be planted, thanks to that purchase. Buyers can use that code to track where the trees will be planted. To date, the company has planted more than 50 million trees worldwide.
Got to remodel your house or kitchen? Both coasts have hundreds of companies using recycled materials that will go to landfill if you don't use it. This house has granite kitchen counters and wooden cabinets that were headed for the dump.
Finally, you can join or donate to many ecorestoration projects around the world; I belong to the Society for Ecological Restoration.
Happy New Year!
Great resources, Martha. Maybe there IS a movement out there toward a recycled economy.
Thanks Martha. I am now motivated to try to get some stuff out of the house and on to worthy places to further their use
Thank you Martha, I love these ideas!
Thanks Martha. So
Many options to explore
Thanks for the thoughtful resource list, Martha. We also have a community nonprofit that has everything from clothing to books to household goods and furniture for all the families with children in our low income Title 1 schools. All donated goods are posted on a private online group for parents and teachers to "shop" for free. Families and college students can also get set up as sellers and start a small business to support themselves. There are some innovative programs operating with like-minded people sharing our overabundance of stuff and making a difference.
Thank you kindly, Donja-Marie. Would you be available to tell me a little more about your community nonprofit? It seems like a model, and maybe there are similar groups around the country/planet.
Of course, and it was designed with the objective of being a model in order to be replicated and reflect the community it serves. My Mother's Voice is based in the Sacramento, CA region, evolving and testing programs since 2006. Early on, there was a need for translators so our immigrant populations could be supported and that has helped build trust. If there are similar groups in the USA or globally, we haven't connected, but that's not unusual in the not for profit world. Underfunding is a common thread. If you would like to learn more, you can message through social media or email through the (rueful smile here, needs to be updated) website. Communication is welcomed.
I actually did it! I actually took 7 business suits to a place called Working Wardrobes (or similar). Now I need to attack, in order:
-all those old jeans that no longer fit; called business casual these days
-books books books on topics I no longer need to know
-papers papers papers, I even have tax papers from 1969...
This is going to be great
Excellent!
Keep sending these ideas. I love them and will do some of them right away
It feels so good to let go of these things. I just did this 2 years ago after selling a home and downsizing to a condo.
You and I, Benjamin, collect the same sort of "stuff." It hurts my soul to know that many of the hundreds of books I own will end up in the landfill. The book sections of thrifts have shrunk way too much since electronics roared in like a cyclone, disrupting the peaceful quiet life I used to live. But with Rethuglicans campaigning to match the society that burned people at the stake for having values way different than theirs, it seems life is going to get even worse for many. One reason to be be glad I'm old and tossing all the paper I can bear to discard right now. Got to finish soon, before wingers use it to burn me b/c I believe in science, that earth warms, decency, and democracy.
@MJ. Your beliefs and values are their own reward!
Will have to consider that one. I just want people to value books more and electronic impulses less. A book is its own reward, IMO.
Ah, Mr. Reich, you remind me of my very favorite client ever.
Back in 1989, California passed Assembly bill AB 939 that required cities and counties to reduce waste going into landfills by 50%. The first target date was 1995, with reduction of 25%, followed by the 2000 year target date of 50%. AB 939 had teeth in it too – up to a $10,000. a day fine for jurisdictions and waste management companies that failed to comply. Well, that got people’s attention.
Three men in our rural community put their heads together to solve the problem. Paul Benz owned the company that picked up our trash, Jerry Palmer was an attorney with an engineering background, and Joe Broadbent was a mechanical engineer with superman building experience.
First, they looked at cities and counties making people sort their own trash – then sending different trucks to pick-up recyclables. The cost of labor and trucks making three runs per week, instead of one, made the scheme financially impossible. Besides, when faced by $10,000. a day fines, expecting people to separate their own trash was a gamble – at best.
Next, they looked at the recyclable market. While there was money there – and tons of potential for even more money as recycling got going - they needed a lot of bulk and clean waste to capture it. Again, counting on people to separate their own trash risked huge losses in recycling dollars.
The real problem was in knowing how much of the community’s waste stream was actually recyclable. So, they started dumping all the trash they picked up into a big yard and sorting through it. Week after week, they sorted through trash – a horrible stinking job – but they finally got themselves some hard numbers. They also got themselves some practical experience. Even better, they got themselves a solution. They called it a Material Recovery Facility.
Just pick up trash like always, bring all of it to the MRF (called the Merf) and dump it in on the ground. Inside the MRF, workers and machines would sort through it and every recoverable material would be sent to separate places (aluminum was sent to one bin, steel to another, stainless steel to another and so on). They could separate plastics, by colour and type, fabric, electronics, paper, cardboard, etc. Green waste was separated from wood waste made with toxins (MDX and MDF boards).
To make it work, they needed to design and build as many machines as they could think of and train workers to do the rest (the Merf created 70 new jobs the first year alone). Workers were given good health insurance and a regular immunization schedule, plus required check-ins (if you weren’t up to date on immunization, no more work for you).
They built an enormous chipper that could handle green waste as big as logs. They sold the green chip for mulch and donated tons of it to schools and parks. They sold the wood waste (with toxins) for dirt roads (which are all over rural areas).
The garbage trucks dumped their haul on the floor and a forklift driver spread it out. Large pieces were pulled out, then the pile was moved to the assembly line above the work floor. There on the assembly line each worker pulled out their assigned parts of the recyclables, while huge magnetic pulled the metals out.
In one building appliances were pulled apart, and the different parts sorted. Large waste, like couches, mattresses, doughboy pools and bicycles were pulled apart, sorted and broken down into smaller pieces. Mattress springs were recovered and sold for scrap metal, the foam was separated and sent to one company, the fabric covering was sold to another company. They hired two people whose entire job was selling their recyclable materials.
Great plan, with three challenges. Challenge one: raising the capital to build the MRF. Challenge two: to keep people from dumping stuff directly in the landfill without sorting it first they needed to control the landfill. Challenge three: they needed more trash to make it a viable business. The only way Benz could solve the city’s recycling mandate, was to solve the county’s problem at the same time. And that meant politics – and not small town politics either.
Raising the capital was the easy part. AB 939 had provided funding to help jurisdictions get started on meeting the recycling mandates. In exchange for a percentage of the profits, annually and in perpetuity, the City used their share of AB939 funds to make a loan to Benz. Benz put everything he had on the line and raised the rest of the money and built the MRF.
Within 3 years, Benz was recovering as much as 82% of waste that had once gone, directly, into the landfill. This extended the life of the landfill by at least 20 years and saving a fortune. Even better, the costs of running the landfill dived, enabling him to invest even more in the MRF. He was also selling the recyclables and turning a profit. In five years, Benz had paid off the loans, saving himself a fortune in interest.
Getting hold of more trash was the hard part. That meant Big politics, because gigantic corporations competing for this nation’s trash business is brutal (think Chicago and New York). Unfortunately, once a public service is privatized, big corporations start weeding out the small competitors until they own the entire darned thing.
If trash was allowed to become a monopoly, corporations could charge customers any price they pleased. Kern County is 8,143 square miles big with less than a million residents. In 2005, the Congressional Research Service reported our region is worse off, in almost every socio-economic indicator than Appalachia (meaning we are poor). Not one city, or community could meet the waste reduction mandate alone. Alone, we were too small and too poor.
Benz sent a proposal to the county. If he could have the contract for waste disposal on the east side of the county, he could meet the mandate. The county was thrilled with the deal. Without spending a dime, or hiring a consultant, or increasing staff, the county could meet one of the most expensive state mandates ever. Better yet, meeting the mandate in only half the county, meant everyone on the west side of the county could just keep dumping waste in the landfill and the county would still meet the 50% reduction mandate. The county took the deal.
Yup, Mr. Benz became a rich man. Let me tell you, home-grown millionaires are a whole lot better than millionaires and CEOs who live somewhere else (think Walmart, or any big corporation that extracts community dollars and pays taxes somewhere else). There wasn’t anything in our community, Benz did not donate to, build or pay for all by himself. For instance, our community is huge on soccer. When our parks and school district could not meet the need anymore, Benz donated the land and built a park with seven professional sized soccer fields for our kids. He donated money, labor, skills and equipment to every school, organization and event in our community. He donated to local political campaigns too – and if Paul Benz believed in you, he made darned sure the political parties could not outspend you. We were all richer because Benz saved us money on trash, and richer still because Benz wanted a nice community for his family, so we got one too.
Over the years, I did a lot of work for Benz, and he was the fairest, most honest client I’ve ever known. Every once in a while, I asked him for a donation for something at my kid’s schools, or the arts or our revitalization program and he sent a check, no questions asked. One day I asked him why he did that. Paul said it was because he’d heard that I stood up for him when he wasn’t even there. I remembered the meeting he was talking about. A new county supervisor had made some disparaging remarks and I’d corrected him - with the facts.
As things turned out, California cities and counties failed to meet the 25% mandate. By the time, 2000 rolled around, they’d stopped trying and started complaining. The California Assembly repealed the bill. Without recycling, new landfills would be needed, very soon, and our county’s waste management department quadrupled its staff and funding.
Free from “regulation” Big corporations in pursuit of “new” customers turned aggressive. In the mid-2010s, Benz retired and lawsuits followed. Soon enough, Waste Management (America’s largest corporate waste hauler) took over Benz’s territory, closed the Material Recovery Facility raised trash collection and landfill dump fees, required customers to separate their own trash and once again, dumped trash straight into the landfill.
After 45 years in business, I’ve learned that America’s “Too Big to Fail Syndrome” is our biggest problem. The truth is that any company that is Too Big to Fail, is in reality Too Big to Succeed.
The American economy was built by quick and nimble small business owners. Instead of “conserving” old ways and avoiding regulation, small businesses are run by innovative people who compete by adapting to change quickly and economically. Instead of the CEO’s of global corporations, it was people like Paul Benz, Jerry Palmer and Joe Broadbent who built the great American economy and our once prized middle class. Moreover, small business people love their work more than money.
Outstanding narrative. Many thanks. When I was committing journalism for a living I had a rap sheet literally as long as my arm on Waste Management Inc. At one point I busted them for having a company officer on the California Solid Waste Management Board. He protested mightily to my editor that he was breaking no laws. This was not the case. Of course. My hat is off to Misters Benz, Palmer and Broadbent.
Martha, reading your words made me feel good. Thank you for thanking me.
I spent a little time in your part of California when I was researching explorer Joe Walker. All of California is still in my heart.
My brother runs the transfer station on Lopez Island, WA (Lopez Solid Waste). They have a "Take It or Leave It" area of tables where they set out stuff in good condition that would otherwise be thrown out. Lots of valuable items are picked up and reused from there. Lopez Solid Waste has won awards and Gov. Inslee even visited once.
I'd love to interview your brother for the piece I'm writing.
Hi, David can be reached at davidz@lopezsolidwaste.org
Thank you kindly.
The basic problem with reuse (it's not recycling) of already produced products is that it will be opposed by the capitalists and therefore will not happen. We have an example in front of us --- soda bottles. Up until the 1960s soda came in glass bottles that were returned to the store which returned them to the soda company. Every town had a bottling plant where these bottles were refilled and resold. This is reuse. Then companies decided to save money and use plastic instead of reusable glass. We arrived at the typical capitalist solution. What to do about the plastic which was now garbage, make the problem the consumer's. Enter the environmentalists. They pointed out that more energy was consumed with the plastic approach than the reuse approach (Hanlon at Uof I Urbana). They demanded something be done about the accumulating plastic in landfills.
So we got the typical liberal "reform". Recycling. Corporations still got to use plastic but the public could return its plastic bottles as it formerly did its glass bottles. In typical American fashion, each locality was allowed to pass different legislation as to what was recycled, how much you got back as your deposit, where to take it, and all of these approaches differed state by state. A now bar coded plastic bottle in Mass cannot be taken to New York even if bought from the same chain retailer. Of course you couldn't bring the bottle to a different retailer even if it was the same brand and God Forbid the producer of the sugar water should in any way be inconvenienced by having to standardize the plastic used in the bottle. Let the consumer figure out what the numbering scheme meant. And at the dump where most of that plastic ended up, there was nothing to do but dump it into the landfill. Even though plastic is now everywhere in the environment. We breathe it, we eat it, nothing is done to systematize this process. Once again God Forbid that any corporation should be held accountable for producing all of this waste. You the consumer are the problem.
I only mention this because I believe this is what drove very nice educated bourgeois people to become socialists in the 19th Century. It was of course utopian socialism. A very popular book from the 19th Century by Ralph Bellamy called Looking Backward gives you the general idea of the popular vision.
All they wanted was a better way to provide stuff.
I wonder if there's a difference between "a better way to provide stuff," as you put it, and a move toward less stuff, or at least reuse?
Yes! In the 1960s there was a serious movement away from consumerism—- embracing the idea of finding the simplest way to accomplish a task, least impactful way to live. Both collectively and individually, people moved back to nature. I have friends who lived off the grid, built their own solar systems, downsized and super insulated their homes and even today in their old age make minimal demands on the environment for heat electricity etc. They have gardens and join cooperative organic farms. The press called this being a hippie but it really derived from a back to nature movement in the 1930s. It is a fundamentally better way to live.
I do believe that this minimalism is something young people have embraced again. I would encourage them to move toward less stuff and more reuse.
Unfortunately all these ideals and individual practices while they are better ways of living and allow you to avoid substituting consumption for living, come up against the reality of our capitalist economy.
For example if the water coming out of your well or tap is contaminated with some chemical used to coat frying pans, you then have to buy bottled water. You cannot escape capitalism. It is relentless.
I think Bernie realized this when he moved to Vermont in the 1960s.
None of our individual efforts can be successful unless we change the system that is destroying our planet.
I know almost nothing about the recycle-reuse status of the old "socialist" economies of the mid-20th century. I wonder how the USSR and its economic sphere in eastern Europe addressed this topic. Do you know whether they made any progress in reuse-recycle -- or were they just as messy as we are?
I’m glad you put socialist in quotes there. The Soviet system was a command and administer economy. The economists I know refer to it as a state capitalist economy. There was a great deal of hoarding in production so anything of value wasn’t thrown away. They made the same mistakes we did
With environment of which Chernobyl is a good example. They never had our level of consumerism so they didn’t thoroughly pollute the environment with plastic. Nothing to praise there except that the Russians were not afraid to speak their minds after a few vodkas once Stalin was in the grave.
One other point. Before WW2 there was less stuff. So a better way to provide stuff meant a more equal distribution of the necessities of life and a more efficient production of them. The only people engaged in conspicuous consumption were rich people. My grandmother expertly repaired my jeans whenever they developed a hole in them. Her mother made her own clothes from bought cloth and patterns. So the idea of less stuff wouldn’t have occurred to those who had no excess of stuff to begin with.
I collected a few old Coke bottles when I sorted the empties during a few weeks' work at the old Oakland plant next to the collapsed Cypress Freeway. In the post WWI era, the cities of origin were stamped on the bottom, along with the year--like coins! I have one from Baltimore, made in 1923, with glass so thick it would knock over a brick wall ..
Goodwill is a company that gets its products for nothing and then sells them at a profit. The Salvation Army gets its products for nothing and then gives them away to the needy. You should be aware of the difference.
This is not an appropriate comparison.
Compare their missions as stated in Guidestar:
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.
Goodwill Industries International works to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work.
Salvation Army donations are part of their charity. Goodwill is primarily a work-related human services agency. Its sales outlets are job training sites and its revenue goes to help support its social service program. While it has revenue from its sales, it does not profit any individuals directly.
Evan, this is beautiful. Truth is beautiful. Let us each decide what values we are supporting!
There is ALREADY a great way to get and receive free usable stuff--Freecycle. I live in the UK and I have been able to find takers for every item I've put out on Freecycle--hamster and bird cages, a 20 year old sink, microwave, stove and other appliances; children's toys of every description, dog beds and more. I highly recommend not throwing anything away unless you've tried to Freecycle it!
Freecycle.org.
20% of medical costs are from high insurance overhead ($50 mil for CEOS, + clerks for denials) and $20 for waste (over diagnosis and over tretment to play it safe), We could cut our costs similar to most of Europe, which has plans similare to Obamacare with no contingincy legal fees (35% of awards for malpractice).. In USA health care costs 18% GNP, and Europe and Canada 11%. in Amedrica hospitals costs 33%, doctors 26%, long term care 13%, drugs 9%, administration 8% (4% in Europe).
When my brother-in-law lived in Heyward, CA, he told us that one weekend a year everyone would put stuff by the sidewalk on a Friday evening. The city was going to come around on the weekend & pick it up; but most of the things left out were picked up by other neighbors. People got rid of what they didn't want, then went around the neighborhood looking for "finds". Sounds similar to these new apps you mention.
Use Freecycle.org
I am always hesitant to get rid of an item I haven't used in years, because as soon do I find that I have an immediate need for it!
Maybe this is a psychological factor - as soon as you get rid of something your psyche manufactures a perceived need...
My husband and I moved x country this year. We gave away, sold, trashed a shocking amount of stuff. Now we need: the posthole digger, terra cotta planters, tall glass vases, industrial vacuum cleaner. . we have spent a few thousand dollars replacing things we couldn't afford to tote cross the country. Felt like Ma and Pa Joad.
Word.
great idea. I hope that everyone would bring used but not broken items to Goodwill Industries or the Salvation Army. we do not need it and hopefully some that does that might not be able to afford a new one will be happy to have it. I keep a corner in the house or garage as a holding spot and then take all items in when the size is enough for a trip to the drive thru drop off at Goodwill. I do not think that putting items at the end of a street is a good idea. they might get rained on , and the people that actually need the items not come into your neighborhood to find them. if you want to avoid the trip to goodwill, they also have a free pickup service that you can schedule. I love the idea of helping though that might have less in this current brutal version of capitalism. Imagine if you had to live on $8 $11 or $15 an hour.... would you appreciate the help from donations ????
Freecycle.org is a great way to find what you need or offer something you no longer want in your local area -- I also enjoy donating usable and nearly new items to local thrift stores.
Our daughter lives in Israel. The streets of Tel Aviv have clothes and furniture, really anything you need to pass on to anyone that needs it. Things are picked up rapidly after placed there. We need to provide a network that allows easy way to do what you discuss
Last year I happened to see a cartoon. I don't even remember where I saw it. The picture was of a man on his deathbed surrounded by his loved ones. The dying man is saying, "I wish I had bought more crap". I think of this every time I am tempted to buy something I don't really need. I love the idea of recycling "stuff".
.. and then there was the NYer cartoon of Ralph driving his Caddy through the pearly port, to the aside, 'Well, I guess you can take it with you." (R. is also smoking a big cigar, so Heaven as an alternative to death may be problematic.)
Hilarious!
I have been recycling "Stuff" for years. I never sell anything that I no longer need; I donate everything I no longer need. When I moved up to Alaska from San Diego, I gave away my car to a person that I knew needed a car replacement very badly but could not afford to buy a newer car. She is still driving that car. During that period while getting ready to make my big move, I also gave away all of the furniture and additional items that I knew I could live without. I never saw so many happy people that came to claim those items for free. It made me feel really good to know that all of the things that I gave away for free were making someone else' life better for them. Today, living in my new home where I have been for seven years now, I still take anything that I don't want or need any longer to Good Will or the Salvation Army. Donating makes me feel good knowing that someone else, somewhere else has an item they need that does not cost them anything, especially if they can't afford to purchase what they really need.