While Brownsville Yawns at Mandated Curbside Recycling, The City Actually Leads the Country in Real Recycling

Rose Timmer Delivering Curbside
Recycling Powerpoint
at City Commission

The well-meaning Rose Timmer's angst, disappointment, even discouragement, when no citizens showed up for the Curbside Recycling Workshop, is unnecessary.

Likely, no city in the United States matches Brownsville in terms of actual recycling, all based on the profit motive with no assist from city government, no bins, blockwalkers or educational campaigns needed.  

First, a definition of recycling:

1. To extract useful materials from garbage or waste.

2. To use again, esp to reprocess

3. To recondition and/or adapt to new use or function

USS Forrestal Being Tugged
to Port of Brownsville

The above definitions certainly fit the scrapping, salvaging being done on the USS Forrestal and two other aircraft carriers to come the USS Saratoga and USS Constellation, recycling by any measure.  

Wired 100 lb Pacas of Used Clothing

Brownsville is also a world hub for used, recycled clothing, which, after sorting, is sent all over the world. Just a few years ago, it was explained to me that Americans donate far more used clothing than can actually be put on the shelves of the Goodwill, Salvation Army and other charities.  They simply do not have the retail space to display more than a fraction of those donations, so the bulk of those donations ends up in hubs like Brownsville where it is distributed to clients all over the world.  The clothing displayed in downtown Brownsville ropa usadas for retail sale is but a miniscule portion.  The bulk is sent to Africa, Central and South America, etc.  

A third aspect of this business has all but been shut down by the drug cartels demand for protection money in Mexico.  In the past hundreds of resellers flocked to Brownsville, especially on Monday mornings to sift through 100lb "pacas" for items they could sell in their shops in Matamoros, Tampico, Veracruz and beyond. With the drug cartels demanding a piece of the action and the Mexican government too weak or corrupt to protect their hardworking citizens, this particular aspect of clothing recycling has dried up.

Lawani Souleiman

The handling of this clothing is based on movement and varies from establishment.  Lawani Souleiman, who has operated a ropa segunda for many years across from the Brownsville Historical Association on Washington Street, starts new merchandise at around $3.00 per pound, with a reduction in price each day.  After one week, the merchandise is shifted to the other side of his store where it remains for yet another week with prices approaching $1.00 per pound.  Other stores in downtown simply shift older merchandise to a "monton," a large mound of assorted clothing piled to the ceiling.  Still, Souleiman's primary business is shipping recycled clothing around the world.

Well-Known Brownsville Recycler on Triciclo

Day and night, through the city's alleys, men on triciclos de carga search for cardboard, aluminum, anything of value.  In no other city have I seem men carefully empty every trash can at a car wash, sort out the recyclables, carefully sweep up and replace other trash back into the receptacle. 

 Even clothing, finally discarded by the ropa segundas, is perused by these scavangers for something useful, valuable.  Yes, Brownsville, not only recycles, but does so in stages.

Mr. Gonzalez, Proudly Posing next to his Triciclo de Carga
in the Alley Between Washington and Adams Streets

Self-employed entrepreneurs with pickup trucks service all of the dumpsters in the city before they are officially emptied by Allied Waste or some professional waste management firm, relieving the dumpsters of both American and Chinese cardboard, thrill at the site of a broken shopping cart or plastic milk crate.  None of their work is remotely connected with a City Commission's green initiative but simply survival based.

Frequently, these prospectors have an agreement with a store employee for dumpster "rights" or at least a heads up call when cardboard or other recyclables are present.  

We haven't touched on the illegal pilfering of copper from construction sites or AC units, the lifting of manhole covers, etc.  Scrap yards do ask questions, but only the legally required ones.  Not long ago, I watched a man and a woman pushing an H.E.B. shopping cart down E. 14th, headed for the salvage yard.  Another shopping cart was turned upside down on top of the cart being pushed.  Other metals stuck out of the carts, all headed to the scrap yard to be sold for a tiny fraction of H.E.B.'s replacement cost for one cart.

There is yet more to Brownsville's recycling picture.  Dozens of small stores downtown as well as vendors at the Hwy 77 Flea Market sell small appliances like coffee makers, juicers, ice crushers, radiant heaters, etc. The boxes have been carefully retaped.  These are return items or sometimes items with product recalls. They are purchased in so-called pallet sales from vendors from up north with the reseller bidding on the pallet.  It's just another form of recycling in the city.

So, Rose, when you look at the big picture, apart from mandated curbside recycling, Brownsville is doing a damn fine job reusing discarded items.  It's our politicians who throw millions of tax dollars down the rat hole.  Maybe these politicos need to be recycled.