There’s Treasure in Them Thar Hills…… of Trash!

I hobbled inta town on my old hoss, Paint, worn out, plumb spent, lookin’ for treasure I heerd tell was in these parts. And sure ’nuf, there it was- mountains of trash, old products, packagin’ and stuff I couldn’t tell what it was- all of it lookin’ as tired and worn out as the soles of my rattlesnake boots.

I saw a young gal talkin’ to some tall cowpoke with a hard hat on, and sort of sidled right up to them to get the skinny on what was happenin’ in these parts. Turned out to be Melissa McGinnis- that lady sure do get around- and Jeff, the head honcho of something called a “MRF”. I had a pardner by that name once, Murf, but this MRF stands for Materials Recovery Facility. My ol’ pal Murf never stood for nothin’.

Jeff and his hired hands have been minin’ them hills of trash down at the MRF pullin’ out some pretty valuable stuff. They send it over to a place they call The Last Chance Mercantile, and it’s a whole heap nicer place than the Last Chance Saloon I hang out in. They got all kinds of reusable goods, from a purty chest o’ drawers for my gal’s delicates to a good-as-new bathtub (altho’ I don’t go near ‘em myself), to a real nifty cowboy hat for my little wrangler back at the ranch. Every month they pull 800 tons o’ treasure out of them hills ‘o trash that gits di-verted from the waste stream. That’s some real treasure right there. But that ain’t all.

They go throo them hills agin and recycle tons of wood, metal, concrete- even dirt! I got a pair of trail chaps myself probably got ‘nough dirt in ‘em to recycle into a fair sized vegetable garden. Now 50 per-cent of them hills ‘o trash gits di-verted into reuse or recyclin’.  And you don’t need to be some fancy pants banker to see that that gits turned into real gold!

So all this stuff goes and gits itself a second chance in life. I keep telling that ol’ sheriff we can all use a second chance once in a while, heck, some of us can use third and fourth chances! Well, I got to be moseyin’ along to the next waterin’ hole down the trail. You take care now, and keep recyclin’ your old stuff like a two-bit novelist recycles old cowboy stories.

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