Since 1989, Brunswick has embraced the Solid Waste Hierarchy, which is usually depicted as a sort of triangle, with the best disposal method at the top, and the worst at the bottom. In that scheme, the best thing we can do with anything we no longer need, or can use, is to find a way to re-use it. All the way at the bottom is putting it in a landfill! In between, we have recycling, and then waste-to-energy, in which the stuff is burned to produce electricity, and which reduces the volume by 90% or more.
My grandmother’s favorite adage was to “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without!” Anybody my age has heard that hundreds of times. It’s the sort of thinking that epitomizes the top tier of the solid waste hierarchy and is far and away the best alternative we have. It originated from the Great Depression and WWII, and it shaped the lives of an entire generation. We’ve lost track of that sort of thing in our decades of prosperity, but space, cost, and environmental concerns take us back to where we need to be thinking that way again.
We actually have excellent alternatives that we simply don’t often think about when we’re done with our stuff. The big ones, of course, are Goodwill and Salvation Army. They both do great things with the materials they collect, the people they employ, and the money they earn through their retail outlets.
Several other local outlets can also accept materials even the big ones can’t handle. In particular, I would recommend a group called Share Center, which was started through the Auburn Schools, and also has a facility at Building 376 Republic Dr., in Topsham. That is directly across the street from Mt Ararat Middle School, and is open Wednesdays from 2:30-5:30 p.m., and the third Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to noon. School systems pay a small annual fee for use of the facility, and any teacher can then stop by and shop as much as they wish for no additional cost.
These folks will accept pretty much anything at all that a K-12 teacher or administrator might be able to use in the school. On the tour I took, they had everything from chairs and desks to endless pens, pencils, paper goods, and scraps of cloth in stock and ready to go. I even saw some very nice quality sweatshirts there that were entirely new, but were overruns of a product with a logo on them. All free to any teacher who could wear them. They have even more at their facility in Auburn, and all of that is accessible to any teacher as well. Find them on the Web at http://www.auburnschl.edu/programs/share-center.
Harry Hopcroft is a member of the Brunswick Recycling and Sustainability Committee.
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