Recycling by mail

Imagine a world where trash is so valuable that, instead of throwing it away, the post man comes and picks it up from your doorstep and whisks it off to some exotic location to be re-used, re-purposed, or recycled.

Well, that day may actually be here. Except, instead of any old trash -- it's your small electronic gadgets and printer cartridges.

The U.S. Postal Service recently decided that it's going to house a new kind of recycling center. It has teamed up with CORE Recycling Concepts (part of Clover Technologies) by placing free mailers in over 1,500 post offices.

The Postal Service is asking people to put their electronic "trash" into these mailers. The post office then pays shipping to Clover's sorting centers. Once there, the items are sorted, and then either sold to companies that can use them or recycled.

The project is centered on a few large cities right now. But if Clover can make enough money and pay the Post Office back for it's trouble, it could expand the program nationally in the fall.  Here's hoping!

Via Computer World