The Compact

The other day on the radio, I heard about this group of friends who swore off buying new things in 2006. I tried to remember their name so I could look it up when I got to work, but got distracted by this and that. Then my mom emailed me a link about The Compact. Very interesting stuff! I joined their yahoo group and think it would be fun to meet like-minded folks. I may give this a try also, now that I understand it's more about reducing footprint than being abstemious. They enjoy buying things used, making an effort to reduce landfill and waste. That I like.

I also love it when things get another use, another chance, a new beauty.

I also highly recommend a book called Mongo: Adventures in Trash. It's all about people in Manhattan and how they re-use things that are tossed. Also see NY Times review.

One reviewer (Rob Hardy on Amazon.com) : " "Mongo" is slang that originated in New York in the 1980s for "any discarded object that is retrieved." This decidedly does not mean mere garbage, the worthless rotting ephemera which no one wants. There are plenty of discarded things, however, from books to wood scraps to blocks of buildings, which the person who did the discarding thought were worth zero and which the eventual collector thought had value. And many times, that value is in the thousands. Frequently this is a surprising story of rags literally going to riches. Botha reminds us, 'The street collector you see today could well be a bum or a lunatic, that's true enough, but just as easily a millionaire, a schoolteacher, an accountant, a doctor, a housewife.' He has contacted all these levels to report on them."