The Buddhist Tzu Chi 慈濟 Foundation operates thousands of recycling stations across the island employing tens of thousands of senior volunteers receiving mountains of refuse to be recycled daily. It is easy to imagine that Disposers are relieved to karmically release there Unwanted to the care of Less Fortunate. Cycling into the sprawling facility, volunteers were quick to point me in the direction to dispose of my iron steed, likely not expecting this visitor to be among the minority coming by to shop through the refuse of others.

Inside the enclave of sheds, some volunteers sat in circles, clustered around categories of material, perhaps piles of paper, heaps of consumer electronics or mounds of unloved clothing, joyfully talking among themselves. A volunteer from a group clipping the power cords off of electric appliances pointed in the direction to browse discarded tools. In addition to being an activity center for elders, the facility generates income as a store selling recovered goods and material. One shelter displayed recovered clothes and kitchen appliances to be sold. The variety of and special qualities of different items thrown out must challenge the volunteers to make sense of them.

There are also large quantities of new material which may be factory extras, expired product or defective manufacturing. High quality lighting units, possibly from vehicle manufacturing suppliers, not commercially packed, spilled out of split open new boxes on pallets, holding thousands of the products that perhaps a factory was relieved to unload, converting Disposal to Donation. There were palettes of what looked to be near finished e-scooter batteries - perhaps expired, order canceled or defective, seemingly fresh out of the factory, being dismantled with kitchen scissors. It seemed unlikely that much of the material will find application close to its intended fabrication, remembering the happy volunteers chatting and snipping the power cords off of appliances in their best effort to separate materials to protect the environment. Clearly there is a lot of good here. Hopefully this great initial effort has not hidden the need to reduce the waste of consumption and marked the issue as fixed.