Trash or Treasure

'And Furthermore' Chieftain column, June 6, 2012

Site's prohibition on salvage a total waste

I’ve been working on a get-rich-slow scheme for most of my life and it’s been working out perhaps a little bit too well. I’ve learned to pinch pennies. Stretch dollars. My money gets a rigorous special-forces workout because it’s got to be in peak physical condition so it can go farther and have more stamina, often working behind enemy lines on desperate missions with no backup.

Free stuff starts looking mighty good when your budget doesn’t budge much. The dump site outside of Lahaina, Maui is where I first learned the truth of one person’s trash being someone else’s treasure. Things with life still in them were set off to the side in orderly piles. My apartment came furnished with just a bed and a gecko on the wall, so the free desk, chair, lamp, radio and slightly-damaged surfboard I found at the dump were greatly appreciated. The desk was actually the surfboard sitting on top of milk crates. If you cleared your papers off and went surfing it felt like having a satellite office in the ocean.

And that’s how the dump became one of my favorite places to shop. 

Magnetic rod holders made with old speakers from the dump.

I was reluctant at first to admit to this scavenging. There can be an awkward silence when you’re asked where you got something and the answer is the garbage. But most folks appreciate a good rescue story – I certainly do – and eventually I got to prefer keeping old things in circulation rather than buying new, even when I could afford new stuff. I like things with background.

Stove, copper backing, tile and teapots: all free.

So when I started remodeling my house in Wallowa County some of the modern fixtures came out as I found better, sometimes older and recycled replacements. Swapping the fiberglass shower insert for an old clawfoot tub was the best upgrade. The wood floor in my house is a mosaic of old fir, pine and who-knows, salvaged from here and there. I did have to buy some new flooring to finish the project, and the new stuff is my least favorite part of the whole arrangement. The nicest pieces used to be panels in a horse stall. Beautiful color.

Recycled wood picnic table.

My kitchen sink came from the dump. It’s stainless steel. The real prize is the perfectly good Moen faucet that didn’t even need new washers. The sink itself is dinged up, but I decided to use it anyway so I could say I reused stuff for everything I could, including the kitchen sink. There I said it.

I had a sinking feeling when I saw this had been thrown away.

So the ‘No Salvaging’ sign at the Ant Flat landfill makes me cringe every time I see it. Here I thought we were supposed to be reducing, reusing and recycling and our local goldmine for that is off limits. I understand that liability issues may be the reason. And I suppose there are people in the world who could manage to hurt themselves while trying to fish something out of the dump, then have the gallstones to find a lawyer and slither up a lawsuit. But I helped a friend retrieve a perfectly good exterior door from the dump in Idaho City, where they have you sign a liability waiver to cover themselves. That seems like a tidy solution.

Bula's log doghouse roof: courtesy of Ant Flat metal pile.

Can we bring back salvaging, Wallowa County? I think it’s silly to have one rule discouraging recycling while we’ve got other rules encouraging recycling. If people pay you to get rid of their stuff, then other people take some of that stuff off your hands, doesn’t that cut down on the stuff you have to get rid of? That’s good, right?

To be clear, I’m talking about the construction pit and metal pile. Nobody needs to be rummaging through household garbage. That goes right in the dumpsters anyway, where it belongs. But windows, doors, metal roofing, copper wire, bikes, barbecues, lawnmowers and whatever . . . a lot of that stuff can still be usable and I think it’s a crying shame to waste it when you’ve got scouts looking to put it back in the game.

Homemade wood-fired hot tub stove built with salvaged metal.

So, to the folks who make the rules up there at the dump, can we replace the “No Salvaging” sign with one that says “Salvage At Your Own Risk,” or words to that effect? Sure be nice to revive the sensible program of letting things go somewhere other than the landfill.