Recycling- One Man’s Treasure

There’s a lot said and written about nowadays about recycling. It is the fashionable thing-to-do in the world. Here in the woods we’ve been recycling as long as I can remember. Nothing gets thrown out after just one use. Doesn’t work the first use, fix it. Doesn’t work the 2nd use, repurpose it. The repurpose doesn’t work, it goes to the scrapper. It isn’t because recycling is the thing to do now, it’s because it’s the thing to do all the time.

I am always amazed when I drive through a town and see stuff set out on the curb for the trash man. There is enough stuff in the dump without adding perfectly good stuff that someone could use. My wife is totally into this. A few years ago she bought a little red truck and would drive through a town on her way to and from work and load up the truck while roadside shopping. That girl had to keep ropes in the truck to keep the stuff from flying out as she drove. The only difference between her and the Beverly Hillbillies was Granny wasn’t sitting up top and she didn’t have a road kill bucket hanging on the side. She once came down from up north with a load on the truck precariously tied down. She said she got blowed at by drivers all the way down the interstate. She just waved back, thought they were being friendly. When I saw the load all I could do was shake my head. She was lucky not to have an unsympathetic lawman stop her.

Well, that’s her. I don’t roadside shop like she does and I am a bit better about loading my trailer for a run. Recycling to me is a paycheck and getting parts I need at a reasonable price. Finding an old vehicle that has parts I can use then turning that vehicle into a BMW next week means cha-ching in my pocket. I have a few vehicles and boats around the garage waiting for the parts to roll in by way of a junk vehicle.  A hunting truck needs a transmission, another needs an engine, still another needs, well you get the idea. Finding the parts I need off an old scrapper is exciting and hearing the engine come to life is a thrill.

Ah, the smell of grease in the morning. Almost as good as the smell of coffee.