Ran into an old timer at the dump who changed how I think about plastic

Last spring I was unloading a trailer full of broken irrigation pipe at the county dump. An older guy in a beat up pickup pulls up next to me and starts pulling out all the PVC fittings I tossed. He said "son, you're throwing away 40 years of use" and showed me how to clean them up with just a wire brush. We talked for 20 minutes about how he's been reusing the same fittings since the 80s. Told me he dug up his first drip system in 95 and reused half of it on a new install last year. It stuck with me because I haul off thousands of pounds of that stuff every season. Now I sort through every job site for salvageable parts. Has anyone else had a stranger call them out on waste like that

2 comments

2 Comments

alice26915d ago

40 years of use" is cool and all, but plastic degrades eventually. Not sure I'd lose sleep over it.

jackson.matthew15d ago

Have you seen how much plastic ends up in the ocean though?