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Off-Topic: Alabama---Birthplace of American Recycling
Posted on 7/11/19 at 5:43 pm
Posted on 7/11/19 at 5:43 pm
Planet Money Podcast
quote:
In the 1980s, the mafia controlled garbage in New York. So when an Alabama businessman named Lowell Harrelson wanted to turn trash into energy, he found a mob boss. Bought 3,186 tons of garbage, put it on a big ship, and set sail to find a landfill to work with.
After a 6,000 mile journey, The Garbage Barge, as it came to be known, resulted in an epic mess.
But it was also the birth of residential recycling in the U.S. as we know it.
This post was edited on 7/11/19 at 5:45 pm
3
Posted on 7/11/19 at 9:39 pm to RollTide4Ever
As a kid in Alabama, I remember when it was very common to see trash just being tossed out of the windows of cars traveling along, the roadside littered with it.
Posted on 7/11/19 at 9:58 pm to John Milner
quote:
As a kid in Alabama, I remember when it was very common to see trash just being tossed out of the windows of cars traveling along, the roadside littered with it.
Just drive around any county road in the state and you'll realize not much has changed. Pisses me off.
Posted on 7/12/19 at 9:29 am to RollTide4Ever
I remember riding in the back of my dad's truck with my brother when we were kids. We'd ride all over picking up cans. They probably spent more in gas than the cans were worth, but we were allowed to keep the money.
Posted on 7/15/19 at 6:59 am to Master of Sinanju
If you were dealing in cans you are probably too young to remember the real cash cow.
Back in the day before plastic and aluminum the money was in glass bottles. You got a nickel for returning one of the smaller 6, 10, and 12 ounce bottles and a dime for the larger 32 ounce ones. A guy on our street would buy them off us for 3 cents for the small and 7 for the big.
People were such pigs you could just ride your bike up around and net $5 a week with no overhead.
Good times.
Back in the day before plastic and aluminum the money was in glass bottles. You got a nickel for returning one of the smaller 6, 10, and 12 ounce bottles and a dime for the larger 32 ounce ones. A guy on our street would buy them off us for 3 cents for the small and 7 for the big.
People were such pigs you could just ride your bike up around and net $5 a week with no overhead.
Good times.
Posted on 7/16/19 at 4:38 pm to JustGetItRight
We ran bottles to Michigan to get double. A friend worked for the post office and he would always sign up for the extra truck running to the Second Domestic Regional Sorting facility in Saginaw, MI, before holidays (especially Mother's Day). We'd carry a couple of mailbags and the rest was ours.
Posted on 7/16/19 at 4:46 pm to East Coast Band
Convicts and welfare folks should be picking it up.
Posted on 7/16/19 at 8:30 pm to RollTide4Ever
quote:
Birthplace of American Recycling
This is actually a fascinating story. The guy lost a shitload of money on this barge trying to create energy from trash, but the national outrage over a barge full of garbage, coupled with the television media spreading false stories about running out of landfill space led to the creation of large scale recycling.
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