In the first part of this series, I found a dented mailbox beside the road next to my house. As I wrestled between ignoring it as trash or responding in a more active way, my thoughts were sent on several tangents—about the symbolism of mailboxes and how we can develop trusted relationships in routinely visited, shared spaces.
I stared at the crumpled metal left by the road. A familiar tinge of concern throbbed somewhere between my head and heart. Across the street, a porta-potty stood like a lone sentinel guarding the construction driveway carved down the side of my yard. To my right, two passersby marched quickly down the street, having just surreptitiously used the porta-potty, leaving me feeling overlooked with a discarded mailbox at my feet.
I looked at the shovel in my hand. I couldn’t get back to my yard work. This dejected object had me glued in place, lost in thought. The tug in my chest was a sign of my reoccurring, consuming unease about waste—the loss of time, opportunity or effort; valuable things treated flippantly or ignored. Often hidden below this bone-deep sense of responsibility is a fear of being abandoned, left alone to give an account for something misused or wasted (A few other examples include obsessing over the thermostat level, capturing rainwater to water the garden, being the only member in a group project to shoulder the weight of the assignment, or growing distressed about news reports I have little control over). Perhaps this reaction of mine is a psychological condition to be addressed, reaching beyond a missing mailbox. But in that moment, it was the one thing most wrong in the world—both a loaded metaphor and an unsightly object littering the grass.
I dropped my shovel and pushed the waterlogged letters back into the crooked mouth of the mailbox. Gingerly, I lifted the familiar shape. It was a similar style as my own mailbox, a hundred feet away. One day my standard-issue box would likely have a similar fate: misplaced, broken beyond repair, forgotten. Unless . . . it could be reused?
I turned on my heel with a refreshing dose of enthusiasm. Rather than toss the lost mailbox in my garbage bin, I dropped it against the side of the house, next to an empty paint can, an outdated political sign and a warped, dismantled desk, a growing collection of items waiting to be delivered to one of my new favorite places in the neighborhood.
“Have you been to charm?” a coworker asked me several years ago with an eager grin. My puzzled expression led her to clarify—the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, where she proudly took her waste for repurposing.
An internet search for CHARM led me to the story of the non-profit’s founder, Peggy, who’d grown distressed while sorting through all the belongings her parents left behind. The city’s recycling program didn’t offer a way to responsibly dispose of hazardous household chemicals, and she was tired of taking so many trips to the landfill. Certainly there was a better way, she thought. First, she reached out to other recycling groups across the county, gathering research and contacts. She started a popular blog, then organized several collection days for her neighbors. Ultimately the grassroots effort bloomed into a network of specialized recycling companies, non-profits, municipal resources, motivated residents and eco-conscious businesses committed to repurposing as many resources as possible.
Eventually, my coworker’s enthusiasm and Peggy’s dedication encouraged me to visit the center myself. One morning I drove across town with a trunk full of half-used paint cans, a cast iron sink and a sun-bleached plastic dog house. My first impression was a bit overwhelming. The small, retrofitted industrial lot felt like a cross between a mechanic shop and an artist’s studio, alive with constant movement, humming machines, painted murals, planted gardens and stocked shipping containers. At the driveway entrance, a line of cars spilled into the street, waiting to check in. Once onsite, visitors circled the lot, stopping at stations marked with colorful signs for “Mattresses,” “Plasticville” or “Electronics Depot.”
I tried to follow the flow, surprised at how confidently visitors jumped out of their cars with bags of bottles and cans, darting between stations and sorting out the materials into a variety of containers. More savvy regulars brought clothes, mirrors, cleaning chemicals, outdated devices, broken tools and food scraps for composting. A staff member in a blue vest led me to a dumpster marked scrap metal, into which I tossed the sink. Another helped me scan the dog house for an obscure recycling number, then pointed me to a large landscape supply bag. I read the displays describing how different organizations collected each material, amazed at how many everyday items had a shot at a second (or third or fourth) life.
Parents encouraged their kids to participate in the process. An assembly line of employees cut power cords off appliances and stripped out the copper wire. Onlookers pointed and marveled as machines compressed styrofoam cups and cardboard boxes into dense cubes. It did have a certain “charm” to it.
When I told a friend about the facility, he said matter-of-factly there wouldn’t be a demand for recycling if it didn’t turn a profit. I bristled at first, but then agreed. Yes, there was an economic aspect to it. But what about the people who brought their old instruments, glass bottles, food wrappers and packing peanuts? What drew them? The recycling center was a bustling, interactive, unexpected “third place”—a term coined by Ray Oldenburg for a quasi-public or commercial space built around community connections rather than merely commerce. CHARM had become a unique venue where neighbors could encounter each other, growing in awareness of our place in supply chains and ecosystems, participating more closely in where our things go and how they return to us.
Back at my house, beside the roll-out garbage and recycling bins, I started building my own collection of “hard to recycle materials.”
A few years later, I was thrilled to learn a second CHARM location was opening in my neighborhood. I marked my calendar and spread the word to friends and neighbors.
Before it opened, I signed up for volunteer training. Rather than the familiar, urgent tug in my chest, my sense of responsibility had been transformed by spending time at CHARM. The desire to donate my time seemed less like a burden and more like being carried by a refreshing current, buoyed up by the engagement of others. I was reminded firsthand I could join forces with like-minded doers when tackling problems I care about. This is “action” born not out of fear or resentment but fashioned as an invitation—toward mutual support, multiplied efforts, and belonging. I might not be as bold as Peggy to take a lone step into the unknown, but I could edge closer to the trail she’d blazed.
I arrived at my first volunteer shift with a car full of cardboard and a load of curiosity. I parked next to an office trailer and wandered in the opposite direction of the recycling stations, drawn by a collection of bird feeders. Buffered by a row of young trees, freshly installed gravel paths wound between corrugated metal garden beds filled with rich soil. A woman called out to me from the office trailer. She wore a sweater with the CHARM logo and an alert expression, her eyebrows curved slightly in suspicion. I looked back toward the recycling stations, sensing I might have breached a protocol. Maybe there had been an issue with loitering, or something had been stolen? In a calm voice, I explained I was a first-time volunteer. She visibly relaxed, then gestured toward the small garden. She told me a local landscape architect had designed it, and they were looking forward to planting in the spring. Now smiling, she thanked me for being there, then pointed me to the box of vests and gloves.
Suddenly, I wondered if I was talking to Peggy, CHARM’s founder. At the volunteer orientation we had learned about the backstory of this new facility and the many partnerships and funding sources needed to make it a reality. My idealism may have put her up on a pedestal, but after our meeting I had an even deeper respect for her work—the numerous interactions she had to navigate, the skill and patience it took to build trusted partnerships, and the courage required to overcome misunderstandings and reorient toward a desired future.
My first assignment was at the plastic sorting station. I enjoyed greeting visitors and being part of their experience. A woman marveled at how styrofoam packaging could be converted to wall insulation panels. A father helped his son toss aluminum cans into a bin whose sign boasted three million cans could fund the construction of a new house. At the sight of my orange vest, visitors asked me question after question (“Can bottle caps be tossed in the same bin?” “Do I need to remove the labels?”). I realized I still had a lot to learn.
To compensate, I tried shadowing two no-nonsense employees who moved around with a relaxed confidence, wearing sweatpants, beanies and bright vests. They touted around full collection bins, directed forklifts, accepted monetary donations on a card reader and answered questions with concise authority. I assumed they must have been only a few years younger than me, feeling a bit intimidated as I tried to match their style. Don’t help visitors too much, let them lead the process.
When the employees asked me why I was volunteering, I tried to give a short, non-flashy answer about wanting to give back to the neighborhood. One of them, a young woman, smirked at my response. I asked the other, a young man, about his work experience. He was working a second job and pulling long hours to save money. That’s when I discovered they’d only recently graduated from high school, new arrivals across the threshold into adulthood. They were nearly fifteen years younger than me, the same age as when I started my first job. But they didn’t seem overwhelmed or shy—or idealistic about recycling and its potential benefits. It was a job, customer service, a way to make ends meet.
Near the end of my shift, I noticed a change in their demeanor. They whispered to each other as I sorted through plastic containers, wearing blank stares as if they’d seen a ghost. I asked what was up. Apparently they were weirded out after seeing one of their old teachers walking around with an armload of papers and cans. Suddenly I was no longer intimidated but instead felt a twinge of nostalgia, that familiar flush of embarrassment to discover that yes, our elders also eat, drink, entertain themselves and take out the trash.
What an awkward phase to transition from the recipient of care to the giver. We may think we’ve matured past an experience or person only to have them reappear in a new season of life. Perhaps a recycling center is as level a playing field as any to engage in these unexpected overlaps, to learn a new way of relating to an old face.
On my way out, I went by the office trailer to return my vest. I followed the instructions, folding the mesh fabric and placing it in a container on a shelf. On my way to my car, one of the managers stopped me. She pointed to the raised planter boxes. “There’s a freeze coming,” she said. “Help yourself to whatever vegetables are left.” Behind a shed with a painted mural, there was one bed with a few remaining plants.
Later that day, I sauteed peppers and eggplant and thought of the compost that helped produce the small veggies. Compost generated by neighbors I’d just rubbed shoulders with, if only for a brief moment while directing them to the appropriate bin. Compost generated by the high school teacher whose students were now independent young adults, trying to adjust to a new phase of life.
After the encounter with the mailbox, as I wrestled with my motive to influence its fate, another nudge toward a regenerative perspective came in the form of Margaret Renkl’s book, Late Migrations. Through brief, poetic essays, she reflects on births and deaths and meaningful turning points in her family’s history, overlaid with her efforts to observe and care for her suburban Nashville yard.
While trying to nurture a mail order collection of Monarch caterpillars, she is dismayed at their vulnerability, even in her carefully constructed garden. “For a while—an hour, two—all seems well, but when I check again, a caterpillar has crawled onto the net and stopped moving . . . When I check again, for now I am checking obsessively, a black blob extends from its hind end, a sticky film of some kind . . . Is this the way a caterpillar surrenders its life, hanging upside down and spooling out a thread of thick black tar? . . . How can I be sure I know life from death in the odd demiworld of this garden, this mesh-enclosed anteway I have fashioned between the mailbox and the sky? The caterpillar stirs, and finally I see: this is not a death at all but only a pause before another stage of life, splitting the skin it has outgrown and crawling away from what it no longer needs. It is a new creature. Even before it begins again, it begins again.”
The next time I volunteered at CHARM, an old man handed me a container of papers with a smirk on his face. “If a meteor was about to hit the earth, there wouldn’t be any need to do this,” he said.
I frowned, dumped the papers into the cardboard compactor and came back with a quick response. “In the meantime, there’s still someone around to buy the materials.” He gave a faint shrug, then returned to the traffic circle. A woman clutching several bags met up with him, and they walked to their car.
My stomach felt uneasy as I moved to my next task, weeding out trash from the planted stormwater pond in the middle of the lot. A week after a rainstorm, wrappers, bottle caps, wadded papers and straws clung to the mulch and matted grasses. I tried to think of a better, more hopeful reply to the man’s dark humor. Up the slope, I saw him sitting in his car while the woman packed the bags into the trunk. I considered their relationship, what challenges they might have weathered in their old age, how many years they might have shared.
“We take care of the people we love,” I thought, wadding up bits of trash in my fist. “We take care of the places we love. Even if it’s guaranteed they won’t be around forever.”
I thought of the neighbors who passed by the mailbox and the conversation we could have had. I thought of Peggy’s parents whose death had prompted her search for better ways to recycle. I thought of the young employees at the center who helped people sort through their trash, but would have preferred to avoid their former teacher. I thought of Margaret Renkl’s focus on the mysterious, seasonal, sometimes harsh beauty of the world as she cared for her ailing parents and then grieved their loss.
We take care of the things we love. It is what sustains us. It brings a rebirth of motivation and affection, rescues us from drowning in responsibility, being overtaken by drudgery, cynicism or disillusionment.
Maybe, like the plastic containers, folded cardboard and worn mattresses at CHARM—or the dismantled mailbox in my yard—there are renewed ways of being, caregiving and creating that we can embody together. Ideas and practices no longer abandoned beneath a landfill but brought to a communal and collaborative place, where they are sorted and reshaped by willing participants.
I love the recycling stories!