My FIL is annoyed because residents of Pennsylvania can no
longer put items such as televisions and computers out with the bulk trash, in
an attempt to keep items containing hazardous wastes out of the landfills.
Naturally, because my FIL gets this information “on the internet” from sources
that I am kindly defining as “dubious”, his facts had a high level of
distortion.
To wit the passing of the state law was a socialist
directive straight from Obama’s lips to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
legislature’s collective ears, and that consumers and businesses would have to
pay for the disposal of such items.
In the same conversation, he informed us that he would never donate anything to Goodwill as it was a for-profit organization owned by a
single individual who was making millions of dollars off of selling other’s
donated cast-offs. When J asked him where he got this information, he replied
“on the internet” and “in the newspaper”, but could provide us with any
additional information. J’s mother also backed this assertion, leaving J and I
to look at each other and shrug.
A hunt to track down source material turned up several
ask.com type websites where people were asking whether Goodwill was a for-profit
organization, a handful of references to news articles published in 2008 about
the CEO of Goodwill in Portland Oregon, who was drawing a rather impressive
$829,000 (give or take a few thousand) salary, and a lukewarm Wikipedia article
that listed Goodwill Industries as a non-profit organization.
My skim through all these sources lead me to the conclusion
that Goodwill was dancing along the same line as other high profile non-profits
that also overpaid their executive directors and spent copious amounts of money
on overhead expenses.
These two disparate items came to a neat convergence this
morning with the publication of an article outlining the new rules for disposal of electronic items. Goodwill of Southwestern PA has been granted a permit by
the DEP to recycle the electronics that cannot be put out with the trash.
