Starting 2013 with a Sense of Schedefraude

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.

I laughed.