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April 20-25 was Clean Up Week at the Rockingham County Landfill. While my husband, Tim, waited patiently in line to discard our unsalvageable junk and joked with a deputy assigned to direct traffic during the busy week, I was Dumpster diving at our daughter’s apartment in Greensboro.

Maybe Dumpster diving is an exaggeration, but I was, shall we say, rescuing perfectly good trash from an eternity in the landfill. I can explain.

I was doing what our family calls the “Sean shuffle,” that is, picking up our grandson Sean from our daughter Samantha’s apartment in Greensboro so we can take care of her second-shift child care needs. She was running late so she asked me to do a dirty diaper drop.

That is when I spotted them: two plastic lawn chairs sitting by the recyclable trash bin. Samantha had mentioned wanting some lawn chairs for her patio. So I checked them out and determined that all they needed was a good scrubbing. I loaded them up and set them out on her patio.

It’s hard to imagine that someone threw them out because they needed Formula 409, but that’s all I could see wrong with them. Samantha called me at 11:15 that night to find out where they came from. Even though I lost sleep, I felt good about saving them from the landfill. 

We’ve recycled since she was 2 years old — 20 years now. I cannot imagine how much trash we’ve saved from the landfill. All of our plastic, glass, aluminum and paper gets recycled. Even before outlets to recycle became common, I scouted them out, loaded our trash and took it wherever.

The plastic lawn chair recovery wasn’t the first time I’ve rescued trash. The chair I’m sitting in right this minute was another piece I saved from a landfill. It’s a sack-back Windsor armchair I found sitting by a Dumpster in need of wood glue and paint. I chose Deep Sage and Colonial Sun — it was a fun paint job — and I’ve been happily writing from it ever since. 

One January, I found a perfectly good Christmas tree stand just waiting for a new home. And last summer, Sean got a new swing because somebody didn’t feel like painting. I don’t make it a habit of cruising trash bins, but if I see something that can be salvaged, why not? It’s good for the environment and good for the pocketbook.

Another form of recycling we do is getting furniture reupholstered. Our last living room suite was Queen Anne, about 100 years old. We bought it from friends who had bought it at an estate auction. We had it recovered and used it until we got tired of it and sold it.

Our upstairs sectional sofa and funky 1960s chair that we inherited from my husband’s dad are at a upholstery shop right now. They were worn and we liked them, so why not? Isn’t it better to support a local business than to support the Chinese economy ?

The funny thing is, our family has always lived this way. Tim, a guy who squeezes the last iota of toothpaste from the tube, has always been a coupon clipper.

Because of the recession, the rest of the country is jumping on our frugal and environmentally correct band wagon.

I read an article in this paper last Sunday  entitled “Landfills hurting as consumers repair, reuse.” Too bad the economy has to go down the tubes for Americans to conserve. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and save money today, tomorrow and always.

Joni Carter lives in the Bethany community. Contact her at writetojonicarter@gmail.com