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Better than recycling
Mr. Kashino shovels scraps from his truck onto his pile of soon to be recycled steel. 99.10.08/ Temperature: 10C/ Weather: Rain/Wind Direction: SW
Start:Mitsuoka Bridge,Hidaka/Latitude/Longitude Unmeasured
Destination: Horokesi, Biratori/Latitude: 42 43 06 N/Longitude: 142 15 38 E
Distance Traveled: 23 kmThe rain started just as I did this morning. The road shook as trucks thundered by splashing puddles of water across my already soaked raincoat and face.
Off the side of the road was a small diesel truck parked next to an enormous mound of steal. I could hear the clanging of steel as random steel parts were tossed onto the pile. A pot, hubcaps, old rusting mufflers, car axles, and unidentifiable bits of steel created a giant mound about 2.5 meters high, 2.5 meters wide and about 10 meters in length. An elderly man stood hunched over slowly tossing steel from the truck onto the pile.
"I collect steel," the man said in thick Hokkaido dialect. "This load here came >from a steel plant down the road. It hurts to see steel go to waste so I'm still collecting. Treated properly this whole pile here will be good steel again," he said limping down from the truck and picking up even the smallest remaining scraps. This 50-ton mound of random steel will soon be for sale as shiny new steel.
Mr. Kashino, as I learned his name to be, has been collecting steel for 40 years. He is now 80. After collecting odds and ends of steel, he sells to buyers who then make new steel. One might think this is a very resourceful way of recycling, but Mr. Kashino has a different opinion.
Better than recycling is to use what can be used. Pulling out an old handle less pot from the pile Mr. Kashino explained, "Rather than having the pot get collected by me, go to get processed, and come back as a new pot, it makes more sense just to fix it in the first place," he said suggesting that the process of recycling is long and costly. "The problem with this is that people are so used to throwing things out that they don't really know how to fix them any more."
Recycling has become quite trendy over the past few years, so trendy that its value is rarely questioned. Though he has made recycling his job, Mr. Kashino has brought into question what can be done before recycling is even necessary. What he has pointed out might be important for our attitude toward things we use in our daily lives.
What do all of you think?
Greg
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