It’s an understatement to say that Columbia University was transformative for my Dad.  He was a poor kid from a Depression-beaten family in the Irish ghetto of Dobbs Ferry.  In 1939 Columbia gave him a $600 scholarship and a part-time job and said “Make it if you can.”  Four years later he was an honors History graduate, managing the campus laundry service, and voted Most Likely to Succeed by his classmates.  He never forgot the doors that Columbia opened for him, nor the personal potential that Columbia helped him discover.

Most of all, he never forgot the opportunity that Columbia gave him.  In 1939 there weren’t a whole lot of schools opening doors to a world-class education for poor Irish kids.  Columbia changed his life.

Sometimes wheels turn slowly.  I was 50 before I as much as saw the Columbia campus.  A country boy by nature, I went to school in New Hampshire and stayed there.  Went to a wedding in NYC in 1980, but beyond that New York and Columbia were a different planet.

Along the way my Dad helped me start my own business in recycling, IRN – the Recycling Network.  And that, eventually, closed the circle back to Columbia.  Two of IRN’s specialties are finding ways to reuse surplus property, and recycling from construction projects.  Columbia asked us to take a look at a project that combined the best – or worst – of both.

As part of its Manhattanville development, Columbia acquired Reality House, a former methadone clinic on West 125^th Street.  Columbia rehabbed two floors into its Manhattanville project offices.  The remaining two floors were left as Reality House left them:  a mess.  There were over 10,000 square feet of partially built-out space: a forest of studs and wiring and door frames.  This and the rest of the two floors were packed with the detritus of nearly three decades:  old computers and monitors and IBM Selectric typewriters, hundreds of boxes of documents, a thousand or more pieces of furniture, fluorescent lights and fixtures, piles of scrap metal, unused building materials, cardboard boxes filled with clothes and toys and office supplies and Christmas decorations.  Three decades of junk, strewn and thrown and jumbled.

Normally a mess like this is a demolition project; recycle what you can, throw the rest away.  But that wasn’t possible at Reality House.  Among the documents were patient and financial records.  The computers also presumably contained confidential patient data.  The monitors, fluorescent bulbs and fixtures all contained hazardous materials.  All of these materials are regulated and have to be handled properly.  There were tens of thousands of pounds of usable building materials, doors and windows, wiring, all of that surplus furniture, all in good condition and 100% reusable.  And there was Columbia’s very serious commitment to the environment and sustainability.  Disposal simply wasn’t an option.

Where most folks would see nothing but problems, IRN and Columbia saw opportunity.  Working with Columbia’s Manhattanville management team and Community Affairs office, we developed a project that brought community-based groups together to take advantage of bright nuggets in the Reality House mess:  Build It Green! NYC (BIG), a Queens-based nonprofit retail that gathers and resells salvaged and surplus building materials at deep discounts to New York residents and small businesses; Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), a nonprofit that works with New York’s unions to bring women into skilled, higher-paying jobs in the construction trades through pre-apprenticeship training programs; and The School of Cooperative Technical Education (SCTE), an alternative school within the NYC Department of Education that provides students with the opportunity to learn traditional trades-based skills along with a variety of state-of-the-art technologies.

Over the course of a month in July and August 2009, NEW and SCTE crews removed nearly 70 tons of reusable and recyclable materials from Reality House.  More than 3,000 pieces, over 10 tons, of furniture and building materials will be injected straight back into New York communities through Build It Green.  Three shipping containers were loaded with surplus furniture and supplies for disaster relief in Nicaragua and Jamaica.  More than 21 tons of scrap metal were recycled, along with 11 tons of paper and cardboard (the paper was shredded to assure destruction of confidential information).  The computers, monitors, fluorescents, and other hazmat-containing wastes were recycled to the highest regulatory and environmental standards.  Overall, more than 90% of accumulated Reality House “junk” was reused or recycled; less than 10% was thrown away.

But most important, more than 30 disadvantaged young men and women from NEW and SCTE got serious job training.  Training in tool use, construction and dismantling techniques, electrician skills, safety, teamwork, communications.  Deconstruction is the most actively growing (right now the only growing) field in the construction trades.  There’s pressing need for workers trained in deconstruction, and before Reality House New York had essentially no work crews with these capabilities.  NEW has pressed ahead with Columbia’s Harlem Small Business Development Center, turning its Reality House experience into a permanent enterprise.  IRN has proposed NEW workers on more NYC-area jobs, and several of the NEW women have been offered interviews or positions in union apprenticeship programs.

Closing my Dad’s circle.  Columbia offered my Dad a shot when no one else had the concern or sympathy to do so.  Nearly 70 years later, Columbia is still at it, still offering opportunities to poor kids from the community.  My Dad passed away in 2001, but he wouldn’t be surprised.  He’d be proud, and he’d be happy that my own firm, the firm he helped start, was able to be part of it.  But mostly he’d be happy for the kids, getting the same kind of chance from Columbia that he did back in 1939.

Boston.com recently published a couple of anti-recycling columns by Jeff Jacoby. I can’t bring myself to write down the link.  If you want you can find them easily enough. They’re standard diatribe. Recycling is a pain in the neck. Recycling costs more than throwing stuff away. 

Backed by standard sources for persons with Mr. Jacoby’s point of view: The Heartland Institute (Wikipedia: “The Heartland Institute questions the scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that global warming is not occurring and, further, that warming would be beneficial if it did occur.”); the Policy and Environment Research Center (“PERC claims that government policy is the root cause of much environmental degradation.”).  Neutral sources, like the Pope is neutral on contraception.

The central problem with Mr. Jacoby’s argument, and almost all of the invective thrown at recycling, is that it regards trash as waste.  And yes, probably the cheapest way to get rid of something that’s a waste is to compact the heck out of it and toss it into a hole in the ground. Mr. Jacoby’s solution. 

But  in fact, trash is resources. Paper is a highly engineered product, as is aluminum, as is steel, as is plastic, glass, wood.  Ignored by the Jeff Jacobys of the world is the fact that these resources are extracted and produced at a huge economic and environmental cost, and that this finite globe of ours is quickly running out of many of them.

Here are some of the things the Jeff Jacobys conveniently forget:

To make (non-recycled) paper, you have to cut down lots of trees, and you don’t cut them down from real forests that support real populations of birds and animals. You cut them from plantations that are all the same species and all the same age; think cornfields.  More and more, you cut them down in places like Brazil or Indonesia where labor is cheap and environmental laws are slim.  Making (non-recycled paper) uses nasty chemicals and lots of energy. Most of the jobs that come with making (non-recycled) paper come in places that are far away. 

To make recycled paper, you don’t cut down trees, you don’t turn forests into plantations, you use a lot less energy, you use (and throw away) a lot less chemicals. And most of the jobs that come with recycled paper are close to home.

To make (non-recycled) steel, aluminum and other metals, you dig huge holes in the ground (from which you waste about 98% of what you dig up).  You use huge machines and factories, with huge environmental impacts and energy consumption. Almost all of these holes in the ground, machines, and factories are in places overseas where labor is cheap and environmental laws are slim, and that’s where the jobs are, too.

To make recycled steel and other metals, you don’t dig holes in the ground, you don’t need giant machines and intensely polluting factories, you use a small fraction of the energy, and most of the jobs are local.

To make (non-recycled) plastic, you start with oil. If I’m not mistaken, the story that dominated Mr. Jacoby’s own newspaper for several months this year had to do with an oil spill – the risks we take every day filling up our cars and using plastics we don’t recycle, and the incredible cost when something goes wrong. To make recycled plastic, you don’t need an oil well.

When you finish with a newspaper or a cereal box or a soda bottle or tin can, you are holding a valuable raw material.  The real question is, what’s the best way to get that raw material into the economy.  Is it to dig holes or cut down trees or build big factories far away, or drill another oil well?  Or is it to move the resource a few miles to a place it can be reprocessed and put back into the economy locally, creating local jobs and supporting local economic activity on the way?

We have invested a huge amount of money over hundreds of years into the systems that turn virgin raw materials into products.  Comparatively, we have invested very little money and very little time into systems to turn used products back into new products.  The reason recycling can be made to appear so inefficient is that we give it such scant attention; we treat it as a way to handle waste, not as a way to produce raw materials.

Mr. Jacoby opened his column with a good point:  Recycling can be a pain in the neck.  Having lived recently with a real pain in the neck (camping trip, crappy pillow), I’m pretty sure the sensible response is not “Kill the whole body.”  The sensible response is, “Fix the pain in the neck.”  Recycling is a sensible and cost-effective way to get valuable resources into the economy.  It takes thought and effort, more thought and effort than writing a column of criticism, but the return is worth it.

As recyclers we have been dealing with electronics for a long time now. Some of you may remember Digital’s electronics recycling facility here in Contoocook, NH, which is where we cut our teeth, Dana working with the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, ML with the State of NH. The name “Digital” all by itself tells you how long we’ve been at this.

It still amazes us, after all these years, that some folks, some of our buddies, some really good recyclers, still think there’s some sort of magic bullet in electronics recycling. A “free” magic bullet. It’s been two years since GAO’s report KO’ed a whole bunch of lousy electronics recyclers. But here in 2010, right here in Massachusetts, there’s another round of operators pushing “free” electronics recycling, and there are folks who are taking the bait. This inspired ML to write the following:

Of Locusts and Electronics

It’s like locusts. They go underground. They seem to disappear. Then they come back. “They” is crappy electronics recyclers. They show up and they tell you things like this: “We recycle to the highest environmental standards.” Or this: “We are an EPA-approved recycler.” Or this: “Our recycling process protects the environment.” Then they tell you something like this: “At no cost.” Or: “For free.” Or: “We will pay for your used electronics.” Then they get your business and they recycle – or “recycle” – for a few months or a couple of years. Then they go away. They always go away.

They go away for a really simple reason: There is no such thing as “to the highest environmental standards” and “for free.” There’s no such thing as “Our recycling protects the environment” and “we’ll pay you.” Eventually people figure that out, and the recyclers, the “recyclers”, go away.

Like locusts. They show up. They blight the landscape for a while. They wear out their welcome. They go away.

One thing about these locusts, though. You have to invite them in your door. If you don’t invite them in, they can’t come in. You can keep them out. What’s weird is that so many people invite them in. Weird but understandable. “Free” is a pretty tempting number. It’s especially tempting if you’ve got a budget to meet and it’s a budget that’s getting sliced every year.

If one of these outfits calls you and you like the idea of “free” but care about “environmental standards”, here’s what you can do. Here’s what you really must do, because if it turns out they’re a locust and you let them into your electronics, that can be really bad for things like liability and publicity and job security.

Get in your car and go visit their place. Heck, if they’re “free” they’re saving you a bunch of money, right, so you can afford a little time to go check them out. Go check out their “high environmental standards”. If they really have high environmental standards, and not “high environmental standards” you should take the “free” and you should tell every single one of your friends to do the same thing. And you should buy the company, because that company is worth billions of dollars.

A lot of really smart people have tried to put “free” together with “high environmental standards” in electronics recycling for a lot of years. It just doesn’t work. There just isn’t enough value in the materials. If you an electronics recycler and you have high environmental standards you’re not free. If you’re free you don’t have high environmental standards. It’s as simple as that.

Which is why the locusts always disappear.

So if one of these folks knocks on your door, GO CHECK THEM OUT! It’s a really simple way to save yourself a whole lot of hurt.

Contact: Kelly Waldram Cramer

WARRENSBURG, MO (June 16, 2010) – University of Central Missouri Housing recently donated surplus furniture from Nattinger and Bradshaw residence halls to relief efforts in Spanish Town, Jamaica and San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The 1,932 pieces and included bed frames, ladders, desks, and chairs slated for Honduran and Jamaican orphanages or residential schools.

This July, the Ellis Complex, which includes North Ellis, East Ellis, and South Ellis residence halls, and the Hawkins Hall apartment building also will donate surplus furniture. Hawkins will contribute over 160 pieces of furniture, including couches, box chairs, love seats, mattresses. The shipment also will contain as many camp beds as space will allow. The Ellis Complex will contribute 2,778 pieces of furniture, including beds, chairs, and desks. Warrensburg Salvation Army received the furniture from Foster Hall, while mattresses are being recycled through the company University Sleep.

“We had a lot of property to replace, and were trying to figure out what to do with all of the furniture” said Brenda Moeder, associate director of University Housing. “This fits with the ‘reuse, recycle, and reduce’ attitude we foster at UCM. Not only were we able to do a good thing for others by donating furniture to them, but this is also an environmentally friendly decision,”

UCM Housing employed the Institution Recycling Network Surplus Reuse Program to undertake the project. IRN networks with dozens of charitable and relief organizations that use millions of pounds of surplus every year.

“The needs are endless, and everything we toss aside in the United States could be used by someplace in Jamaica,” said Mark Berry of IRN.

For more information about this or University Housing, contact the Kelly Waldram Cramer, marketing manager for housing and Greek life, at 660-543-8121.  http://www.ucmo.edu/news/furniture.haiti.cfm