live-cycle

What a depressing weekend. I am clearing my loft ahead of moving house. But that is not what depressed me. It was the trip to the local dump that really got me down. I shouldn’t call it a dump, rather a recycling  centre. The sight of the things that get recycled these days  is quite appalling – serviceable computers, televisions, printers. My local dump/recycling centre has come a long way in the past few years. It is divided into general waste, which goes to landfill, cardboard, plastics, glass, batteries, electrical goods, white goods, televisions and monitors, and so on. There is also a metal section, and this is the bit that really depressed me.
My son is busy building himself a single-speed bike to commute to work in London. Like most broke 25-year-olds, he is doing it on the cheap, or for free where possible. So the sight of about twenty bikes about to be recycled as scrap metal is particularly galling. Okay, so most of them weigh a ton and are worth tuppence, but there are so many good working parts on them so that, cannibalised, they could make up a good few mounts that many people would be happy to own.
Yes, recycling has its benefits, but it is not the best answer. There is something  even better, and it is called Freecycle. Go and google it, and join your local group. It is the best way of recycling, because it does not involve melting down cheap bikes and selling the low-grade materials on to the third world. It cuts a lot ofwaste, keeps eco-warriors happy, and can help some of the most needy in our society.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Dennis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.