According to a recent article on AOL Money & Finance (money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/recycling-goes-from-boom-to-bust-as/270472), the once-thriving recycling industry has pretty much gone belly-up in our current economic crisis. Though great for the planet, it seems there’s no percentage in the sorting of materials and the carrying of bins to curbs when times really get tough…which leads to an extremely valid (though largely rhetorical) question:

What next?

I mean, how is it possible that so many seemingly diverse industries can be so intricately connected that the failure of one can have such severe repercussions for the rest? A chain that goes from the mortgage industry to insurance companies to entire banks to the Big Three I can kind of understand, but recycling? Have things really gotten that bad?

Perhaps a better rhetorical question is this: What isn’t completely falling apart? Since I asked the question, I’ll offer the first example of something that’s booming in a down economy: Spam, as evidenced in the following article from The New York Times.

www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/business/15spam.html

Once you’ve read about the recycling rollercoaster and the rise of Spam, be sure to come back and tell us your own success story. I think I speak for the group when I say it’s time we all heard some good news.