From Scratch

Hi readers, This GOOD article was pretty eye-opening for me- as I never fully understood how the American-looking "vintage" clothes I would see all over Southeast Asia ended up there. And then there's Japan, a country whose obsession with American-style clothing I've read about quite often. Well, I guess the jig is up. We, Americans, are inadvertently donating our clothing to the vintage/thrift industry all over the world, or mostly Asia and developing countries in South America, Africa, and Asia. No-go for Europe? When we donate our last-season or fairly tattered clothing to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, slow-sellers are shipped overseas for second-secondary sales- tertiary sales. I have an idea—how about cutting out the middle-man (Goodwill, etc.) and donating/selling our clothes directly to these second-hand clothing industries overseas? However, is this an endeavor worth pursuing since the profits would most likely go directly into the pocket of an unethical...

A few years back while interning for the Jakarta Globe , I wrote about Jakarta's sanitation and recycling system. What I found especially unique and new to me in researching for this article, was the entrepreneurial, non-government supported recycling process. Jakarta has no blue or green bins, provides no information on recycling, and does not teach its youngins' the benefits and process of recycling (recall the ubiquitous phrase: "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse"). Au contraire, the main goal behind recycling in Indonesia does not include social welfare-- the individual trash pickers who sort through the city's recyclable materials are motivated by profits to be made. As a market exists there for recyclable raw materials, individuals collect plastics, glass containers and paper to make a profit. Thus, the local government finds little incentive- socially or monetarily- to interfere with this seemingly successful recyclables system. Why spend government funds on a project...