i hate waste.

I hate totally wasteful people, particularly. I was about to cry this morning on my way to the WLP, because it's near the end of the month & lots of people are moving out of their apartments/sublets, so there was a TON of TOTALLY usable "trash" all over the sidewalks. If I hadn't been on my way to somewhere, I would have spent hours upon hours scrounging around all of the piles of things that people considered too junky to take with them when they moved on. Things like perfectly good couches & clothes that could actually be USED by other people!!! Augh. I was sooo frustrated by the time I climbed aboard the T. I wish there was something we could do about it -- I was speaking with some of the WLP staff, and they agreed that it would be awesome if, instead of "Big Trash Day", the city could sponsor something like "Goodwill Day", where everyone could leave things they no longer wanted on the curb, and Goodwill trucks (staffed by volunteers, I guess) could go around & collect everything for redistribution to those who wanted it. Sigh.

And it's not like people don't even have options, right now. Personally, I'm an avid fan of FreeCycle, and even CraigsList has a "free" section for things people want to give away but probably can't sell! Plus, I just found out today that Goodwill actually does come pick up things like used-but-still-okay furniture. So there's really no excuse, except that people are lazy. And goodness knows I can be, too. But I also can't stand to throw still-functional things away. (Or anything, really.) Bethany & I watched the second installment of "Affluenza" last night, and we agree that it's such a shame that people throw things away instead of trying to get them repaired, these days. I wish we could see a resurgence of repairmen...but things seem to cost so much more to fix than to replace, now. Gah.

Okay, I'm done with my rant -- for now. I will leave you with a book recommendation: Gone Tomorrow, by Heather Rogers -- she's actually coming to speak at the Center for New Words this fall! Yay! And with a proposal to start a local "EcoTeam" -- who's with me??

On a much happier note, Dan & I did get a lovely coffee table from one of those piles o' junk last night. Save for a few tabletop mars, it's like new -- and it was entirely free. Can't do better than that.