Dumping vs. selling vs. recycling (Long)

Dumping vs. selling vs. recycling One of our local high schools has a "clothesline sale" every year. Everybody donates all year long. The students get the first purchase chance, alumni second, general public third, and then all you can carry for $5. I sort, price, sell the computer/electronic stuff. If you really want the stuff then you will pay the asking price or take the risk that someone else will. When the price drops you have the chance again. Finally its $5 and it's yours. Lastly its off to Goodwill, or the computer surplus exchange. I guarantee there is nothing but trash in the dumpsters. Most of the obvious stuff sells fast, the older stuff or something that needs repair may take awhile. Since they have to pay to have the dumpsters dumped by the trash service most of the stuff we can recycle we do. The biggest problem is that items may not be obviously valuable unless you know what you have. We had a Grid in a magnesium portable case that was priced $10 because of no power supply. It went for $5 eventually. I was a little late the other day at the surplus and a HP MO disk jukebox went to China for 7 cents/pound. All of the stuff to China must be salvage so they had sledgehammered it. I did pick up two 3B2's for 10 cents/pound. I need to check the surplus every week, no vacations allowed. I'm of the belief that once you dump it, I'm saving you money by taking it out of the trash. I know that most trash haulers charge the customer by the pickup and then they pay by the cubic yard at the dump/landfill. I think we can all agree that what we have here is a redistribution problem. The cost is shipping to redistribute you trash/my treasure. Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu