On 17 Oct 2006 14:45:42 -0700, "Beloved Leader"
wrote:


Michael Black wrote:

And as electronic recycling becomes common place, I'm not fully conviced
the right decisions will be made. I'd love to drop off some junk (like
that I've pulled from the garbage in the first place) and be able to claim
something someone else has tossed, that interests me or can finish off
something I have (like claim a hard drive to go in that computer I brought
home that had none). But that can't happen, because any useful items,
at least here, are sold on the used market to help finance the collection.

Alexandria, Virginia, 50 miles to the southwest of the original poster,
prefers that "obsolete" computer equipment be turned in at the toxic
waste dump (as I call it), which is open one day per week. They have a
huge dumpster, open so that you can walk in, that slowly fills with
CPUs, printers, and monitors. In addition, people throw in old stereo
equipment and TV sets. When the coast is clear and no one is looking,
sometimes I help myself to an occasional goody. Usually I can recover a
toner cartridge or a needed cable. If I saw a nice open reel tape deck,
I'd try as hard as I could to grab it and run.

The woman who supervises the dump takes a dim view of this personal
recycling. She yells at me when she sees me in there, so I've had to
stop helping myself to the swag. It's a shame, too, as there is a
mountain of decent stuff that ought to be free for the taking.

I agree with you.

I once told the story of drivign down 2nd Avenue in NYC, somewhere in
the 20's and seeing a big (though only 5 or 6 foot high dumpster full
of books.

There were about 6 guys inside gathering books, plus I joined them of
course. All hardback, on every subject. There were 3 kinds of
people, those who would get in for a while, those who would just walk
by, and those who would stand outside once in a while pointing to a
book and asking someone to get it for them. How they could see the
title on a hardback book with no dust cover, I don't know.

I got about 20 or 25 books the first day, and I went back 2 out of the
next 4 days. The level of books kept getting lower. There must have
been 20,000 to start, and maybe 10,000 when I stopped going. But they
were probably adding more books every day also. (I had to come from
Brooklyn.) The weather was beautiful every day. New Yorkers are used
to finding good stuff in the trash, because most aparatments are small
and even in the 70's people couldnt even keep a broken 12 inch tv
waiting for a time to fix it. No room.

I got about 35 books in total.

I have seen one of those full dumpsters being hauled away. It was an
absolute heap of electronics, all headed off for destruction.


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