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What does it mean to “live green?” Does it mean buying organic, locally grown foods, wearing natural fibers, driving a hybrid, and using the new light bulbs? Or does it mean that you grow your own food, produce your own energy, and ride a bike to work? All of these are “green” activities, but there is another behavior that many West Virginians engage in without considering its environmental impact.

I’m talking about junking, and I do not mean the scrap metal recycling business that is keeping many families financially afloat these days. Their hard work collecting scrap and taking it to the recycling centers is certainly helping the environment. I don’t know about you, but I like seeing loads of junk heading down the road because I know that another trash pile has been cleared, and someone is going to get some hard cash in their pocket.

The kind of junking I refer to is the kind I engage in regularly: shopping at yard sales, thrift shops, auctions and any other place that sells used. I am always looking for the unique, the old, and the unusual in out-of-the-way places. My whole house is furnished from these places. My adored Tappan Deluxe gas range (c.1950), for example, was sitting on a front porch with a cardboard for sale sign taped to it. My like-new gas dryer came from a Craigslist ad, and the ornate pre-1930′s clayback heater we call “The Beast” because of its phenomenal heating abilities was another resale find. Vintage dishes, stainless cookware, silverplate, crystal, hand-embroidered linens and everything else that finds daily use in my home was once someone else’s unwanted item. Even my clothing is secondhand. I can’t remember the last time I bought something new to wear-besides underwear and socks, that is. A woman has to draw the line somewhere!

While my main reason for buying secondhand (or third or fourth, who knows?) is because I enjoy the hunt for the unusual and the older, better made items, there is another benefit to junking: recycling. This country is awash in clothing; everywhere there are resale shops and yard sales where people try to dispose of their old clothes to buy new. Donation centers get overwhelmed quickly with clothing donations any time there is a natural disaster.

I was horrified last year when we were dismantling an old log cabin (to re-use for an addition to our house) to find that clothing that had been left in the cabin for over 30 years had not deteriorated at all. Think about all the millions of pounds of clothing discarded annually in our landfills. It is sitting there, not rotting away like cotton or other natural fibers, but retaining its shape and color for who knows how long. In the future, will buildings be built on piles on un-rotted clothing? Okay, that’s extreme, but you get my point. The same is true of almost everything we use: if we discard it, the item is out of sight and out of mind. Yet it has to go somewhere and if it is a synthetic material odds are it will be around for a long time.

So here’s to all the junkers out there: may you live long and prosper, and may your tribe increase. The more of us who prefer to shop the used markets, the less the landfills will have to dispose of and the less oil and other resources will be needed for manufacturing. And that’s better for the planet and for every one of us.

A professional storyteller, Granny Sue has several published works, online at http://www.grannysu.blogspot.com/.