Re: [greenyes] Decomposition in Landfills

[OrionCA <orionca@no.address>]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:40:33 -0500, you wrote:

>
>Here we sit in the richest most powerful country in the world =
>landfilling brand new goods while our own people and much of the rest of =
>the world go without.  How can we stop this senselessness?

The definition of a weed is, "A flower growing somewhere it's not
wanted".  Likewise, "perfectly good" material that is unwanted or
unsaleable goes into landfills because the owners have no use for it.
KMart, Target, et al throw it away for the same reason dairy farmers
lobby against the government doing anything with that 1.5 Billion
pounds of dried milk it stores - giving goods away depresses their
sales.  If you can get a brand new sofa at the Salvation Army for
free, why buy one from Sears?  

To convince them to recycle instead of dispose you have to find some
market for those goods that either benefits them or at the very least
doesn't compete with them.  Companies donate some surplus goods to
charitable causes but they're not going to do that to the extent that
it cuts into their profits significantly.  if you can find some use
for a brand new sofa that doesn't compete with the furniture store
that wants to get rid of it and saves them the cost of landfilling it,
they'll probably be glad to let you take it off their hands.
--
I'm on a journey in search of myself.
If I get back first, let me know that I'm 
looking for myself and don't let me leave.