19 Aug Harvesting the Streets of Austin

 Harvesting the Streets of Austin by Mike Hirsch

I have long embraced environmentalism’s three Rs, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. While I, like most of you, look to incorporate strategies to do each in my daily life, I have one sort of unorthodox strategy that does all three that I want to share. I call it street harvesting.

For the last five plus years I’ve started each day by walking my dogs through the Hancock and Hyde Park neighborhoods. In addition to carrying bags to pick up my dogs’ poo, I also carry a bag for recyclables. I pick up most of the metals I come across, most of the plastic bottles and some of the glass.

I also pick up other oddments that find their way onto our streets. There are tools, cigarette lighters, house wares (e.g., glasses and cups), lumber, clothes, balls, etc. The streets of Austin are bountiful with lost and discarded materials. I have found and returned numerous wallets and cell phones to grateful owners. I’ve also picked up a startlingly large number of batteries of all sizes that inexplicably end up in the gutter.

Once home I sort the harvested material into metal specific containers: one for aluminum cans, one for brass, another for copper. There’s one for lead, buckets for steel, stainless steel, non-can aluminum and one for miscellaneous metal. I also have a pail for discarded batteries. In the last three years I’ve taken over 60 lbs of them to Austin’s household hazardous waste drop off site.

Twice a year I take metal to the scrap yard. These walks have yielded more than 6,200 lbs of metal in five and a half years and over $2,500 for the recycled scrap. I have picked up thousands of nails, screws and bolts (hopefully reducing the number of flat tires and perhaps even accidents), nearly 400 lbs of lead (primarily weights used to balance tires) and over 1,600 lbs of aluminum cans. Steel, the most omnipresent metal, has topped 3,300 lbs. Most of the money generated from the sale of the metals has been invested into Austin’s Black Star Beer Co-op Pub and Brewery.

 I’ve used some of the lumber in remodeling projects, kept some of the tools to fill in gaps in my tool boxes, and given many items away to family and friends (in fact I’ve saturated my immediate network with working cigarette lighters from the street). But most of the reusable goods have found their way into the rummage sales I’ve hosted for NARAL ProChoice Texas, The Lilith Fund and BookWoman. My street harvest goods have generated hundreds of dollars for these groups in the last several years. And yes, I find money almost every day…

 Though I’m sometimes mistaken for a homeless man by folks who don’t know me in my neighborhood, several folks I’ve passed have thanked me for cleaning the streets. To me it’s a simple environmental activity that Reduces, Reuses and Recycles.

I read that Ghandi once said he spun thread every day to model a positive and industrious behavior that all Indians could emulate. My street harvest activity is a simple way to contribute to global sustainability. I hope others will pick it up.

 Mike Hirsch is a Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Huston-Tillotson University. He can be reached at mlhirsch@htu.edu.