NPR

‘Secondhand’ Author Adam Minter Tracks What Happens To Your Used Stuff : NPR

Author Adam Minter remembers two periods of grief after his mother died in 2015: the intense sadness of her death, followed by the challenge of sorting through what he calls "the material legacy of her life."

Over the course of a year, Minter and his sister worked through their mother's possessions until only her beloved china was left. Neither one of them wanted to take the china — but neither could bear to throw it out. Instead, they decided to donate it.

Waiting in the donation line at Goodwill, Minter began wondering what would happen to the dishes: "It occurred to me this is a very interesting subject," he says. "Nobody really knew what happened beyond the donation door at Goodwill."

Minter had spent nearly two decades reporting on the waste and recycling industries. Now he began looking into the market for secondhand goods, both domestically and in Africa and Asia.

"Your average thrift store in the United States only sells about one-third of the stuff that ends up on its shelves," he says. "The rest of the stuff ends up somewhere else."

I was listening to this podcast earlier. It is a very interesting listen.

Camping under a Full Moon on the East Branch

Once again this first weekend of December I camped on the East Branch of the Sacandaga River near Cod Pond. It was a nice night, but a bit cold and long, being that it's December.