A Recycling Life

Early one morning last week before heading into work I was enjoying the last of my coffee while reading another chapter from Tom Wolfe’s, Bonfire of the Vanities. Not sure why I never read it when it was first published, but 20 or so years later it seems few things have changed – at least on Wall Street.

Morning has a pace all its own. Looking out my front window I’ve noticed when the traffic for Fairfield University and Prep starts to increase, when certain joggers or walkers pass by on their daily routines and even when the activity at my side yard bird feeders builds to a noisy, but controlled frenzy. All sorts of things. So when the yellow van nosed into my driveway, parked and two men got out and picked up my and my neighbor’s recycling bins I took notice. Times must really be getting tough if the trash people are downsizing to Econo-vans, I thought. But when these two guys kept glancing up and down the street furtively as they rummaged through the bin it dawned on me – they’re looking only for the deposit bottles and cans. I wondered, are they being more efficient than the shopping cart guys…or just more desperate. These men looked as if only a few months ago they may have been pushing lawnmowers or paint brushes. This winter has already brought a lot of changes.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen grown men, of apparently sound mind, rummaging through trash with the idea of getting a little money from the recyclers. I’m not talking about picking up odds and ends left at the curb and giving them a new coat of paint. No, I’m talking about actually going through garbage.

Bridgeport’s dump in the 1950’s was a marvelous opportunity for junk pickers. My younger brother, Brian, and I would sometimes get to go there with our father to search for copper. We’d climb the huge mounds of garbage along with a handful of other men and boys looking for the tell-tale signs of a pay off – the tangled BX electrical wiring stripped from old buildings during remodeling or demolition and just dumped. We’d take hold of the cables, twist them counter-clockwise and reveal their inner strands, one being the coveted copper. After a few hours we’d take our buckets full of wire to the junk yard across town. Who knows how much it was worth or what it bought for our household – it was worth something and we – my brother and I – had the time of our lives making money from what we considered play.

Fifty years later, because there’s no more dump, men drive to my house to go through garbage. Somehow, judging by the looks on their faces, I don’t think they are having much fun.