Detailed Information:
Free Internet exchange helps take the load off landfills
Brevard County residents produce more than 1 million tons of a trash a year. That's a lot of garbage, and with the Space Coast's rapidly growing population, those numbers are
only headed higher.
Solid-waste management, the fancy name for the people who run the county landfills, recycles about a third of that tonnage. But the rest of it ends up in the landfills, testimony to our wasteful lifestyles.
And much of that -- from computers to furniture and clothing -- could be reused instead of dumped. Considering
electronics alone, recycling instead of dumping can keep massive amounts of toxic metals such as cadmium, mercury
and arsenic out of groundwater and air.
That's why a new recycling trend looks like a smart and ecologically beneficial way to lighten the trash loads.
Called freecycling; it connects people who want to get rid of stuff with people who want it.
The goods are traded free through listings on a family-friendly Web site that after just a year, has over 550,000 members
nationwide. The Brevard County Freecycle
Network chapter has more than 1265 members.
In a nation hugely challenged by the garbage produced by consumerism, it's an intelligent way to help the environment, preserve natural resources, encourage recycling and cut the cost of taxpayer-supported landfills.
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