-Comic book questing in an unlikely place I was recently employed a few months at a recycling plant working "the line", where recyclables delivered in trucks are dumped onto conveyor belts for employees to sort thru and toss down separate chutes by respective material - paper, plastic, cardboard, metal, etc. Just about anything can and does turn up on recycling lines! Vintage books, newspapers, magazines, CD's, 45's, dead dogs, live rats, baseballs, Frisbees, toys, dolls...myriad unmentionables! I'd employed previously at another plant where supervisors had no issues about staff taking home interesting "finds" at day's end. This seemed a reasonable fringe benefit given whatever a dozen employees could carry out in backpacks wouldn't make a blip of a dent in profits made off the tons of material brought in by 53' trailers for processing each day. Word from fellow employees at the outset of my recent gig was management there had a similar relaxed attitude toward it. I was offered things and encouraged to take whatever I wanted by several co-workers. As time passed however, this policy became fuzzier as some of us were singled out by a supervisor for taking too much. I cut back, then soon after stopped taking anything at all despite continued offers and encouragement by some. But I did keep what I'd already brought home. As to whether it was "too much", I can say everything I took over three months (mostly printed material) could fit inside a single cardboard banana box. Not a lot, relatively speaking. I'd be happy to replace it with twice the weight in old newspaper or flyers. But if management was smarter, they'd start collecting this stuff themselves, run thrift stores out of these plants, channel the proceeds toward something worthwhile, and maybe get some good press for it in the process. I'd set intents at the outset of my stint toward turning the job into an all-day comic book quest. If this were done within the context of it not interfering with job expectations (as I felt it could), it should not have been a problem. And it would make the day more interesting and purposeful. This site features a quick look at "finds" that turned up on the line as I watched and waited over the three months that followed. It's interesting to see exactly what an endeavor like this yields over a specific period of time when undertaken deliberately in such an unusual place. And it gives indication how many collectibles may be passing through recycling plants everywhere. It's also interesting to consider in the larger context of how collective consciousness could have been at work delivering material into my hands for purposes beyond mere "coincidence" - such as material I needed or wanted to see, what someone else needed or wanted me to see, or even what you or someone else wants or needs you to see by visiting this site. The "psychic dimension" of things is always at work in our lives!...even on recycling lines, trips to the dumpster, or while surfing the net. - the line finds guy (
[email protected]) -December, 2013 P.S. Please read some further words I have to say about recycling at the bottom of page 2.
