Helping The Environment... And Now Someone Else's Business To A Third World Country... Because It's The Right Thing To Do

While picking up trash & putting items in recycling bins are important practices, recycling & upcycling to SAVE goods from being wasted is a much higher priority for me.

The items I upcycle are often heavy and voluminous. For example, I can't even imagine how many thousands of pounds I've saved over the last few years, but it's a LOT. That type of impact is what matters to me.

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Full Circle:

After selling a machine for $170 cash to someone I randomly met at 3 AM on the curbs near my apartment before my Austin trip, we're starting to work together casually. The full story is here.

This will help him more than me, but it helps the environment the most. That's what I really care about.

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Setup:

This man upcycles carpets and rugs that are thrown out and cleans them (now using the carpet extractor I sold him, which I found on the curbs about 2 minutes from where we met). He then sells/ships them via containers to a third world country. He wins. They win. I win.

If I text him leads on carpets when I'm out casually walking or upcycling myself, he'll pick them up and throw me a cash tip.

If I elect to take them home to secure them for easier pickup, he'll give me more money, but I'm not set up to do that.

This is our second successful lead > pickup. The first pickup was supposed to be 4 neatly rolled carpets I stashed for him, but a savvy hunter somehow found my hiding spot between 4AM-11AM and took 3 of them. Fortunately, they left one for him to grab.

Running tally: 4 carpets saved. (That's a lot of weight.)

Here are the 3 from yesterday, which he grabbed earlier today. One was very high quality.

Proof:

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We're still working out the process, but moving in the right direction. I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing this to reduce waste and help others.

Everyone can recycle and also save things from being unnecessarily wasted. While I resell most of what I find, keep a little, and donate the rest to thrift stores, there are plenty of options to help here.

Thanks,
@steemmatt