It’s a Hogwarts Tee Shirt!
Whoever out-grew it and left it in the clothing free store at The Mall: Thanks kid! It found a home.
That’s the true spirit of recycling. It goes with my complete Harry Potter video collection that I got from The Mall’s free store library. You’ve seen the “Little Libraries” around town I guess. Well The Mall has the biggest little library. Not as good as the real thing, and not nearly as good as Well Read Books, just closer.
We’re in the habit of shopping at The Mall first. Some time ago I lost a hubcap from our camper van. More recently we found a battery operated furniture vacuum that still had enough charge to actually work. Trouble was it needed a specific “wall wart” (a power adapter that covers up the adjacent socket and renders it unusable) and an end plug to charge it. Fast forward a couple of weeks: we found the wall wart and plug in The Mall’s electronics department before the saboteur got at it, and my hubcap was sitting on a block of cement near the metals department. We all like the vacuum, and Spock the Roadtrek is complete again.
Yes, there is a saboteur hanging around the electronics department. Kind of a stupid person actually. Someone who clips the cords between the wall warts and the device, then burns the plastic off so they can sell the copper. It’s a self evident obviosity that they don’t give a fat rat’s ass about air quality. Or serious recycling.
My advice: Don’t be so damn lazy. There’s a whole bunch of dead generators and motors in the metals department. You can probably find a sledge hammer there to beat them apart with, liberating several pounds each of varnish-wrapped copper wire.
As for air quality: take ’em home and burn ’em off in ‘yer garage.
With the doors and windows closed.
Rant over. Now getting back to the stuff that people threw away and we’ve found a use for.
The electronics department isn’t junk. Pretty much all the electronics in our house are sourced from The Mall. The TV, our computers, monitors, keyboards, stereos, speaker systems, a solar panel…all of this came from The Mall.
Routers! How does anybody function in this day and age without routers? Solar array to shop to cabin to house? Possibly including the cheatin’ buggers who stop at the top of our driveway tryin’ to pirate our connection?
Groaner alert! A whole bunch of stuff got “rerouted” to Computers for Schools.
Non-electronics include a 185 gallon rain barrel. Metal roofing that saved a pile of money for us and our neighbours, when we had that awful windstorm a few years back. That wind tore off a quarter of the neighbours’ roof and the ridge cap off our roof.
Our greenhouse is a half-building with a recycled glass wall and more of that metal roofing. The roofing feeds rainwater to a recycled horse trough. And we got enough tubing from instant garages to make a 20 ‘ greenhouse-like cover for a raised bed in the garden and a gazebo for just sittin’ around in.
A complete roof for our generator shack.
Perfectly good bicycles for seniors that only needed a little maintenance. A pop-up mosquito tent. Jeans, jackets, hoodies. Lanterns for camping. A relatively clean Carhartt ensemble. (We think someone got an office job).
So where is this marvellous emporium? The Mall? In reference to an old song: “Well, if you don’t know I ain’t gonna tell ya…” But here’s a hint: It costs ya a buck for ‘yer admission and that includes disposal of a bag of household garbage. Pound for pound I think we, as a family, are ahead of the game by about 10 to 1. A pound of vacuuming dust, chicken bones, and tin cans for ten pounds of electronics or metals or books!
