I guess there's a difference between being strange vs. being a stranger, just like there's a difference between being clean and being a cleaner, although the differences aren't the same. The difference that has piqued my curiosity lately, however, is that between recycling and reusing.

I'm not a stranger to this concept of recycling. When we were teens, we lived too close to the high school to ride the bus, but too far to walk in any reasonable time. So we rode our bikes. Every morning we cycled to school and every afternoon we re-cycled back home. I reused the same bike every day (until it rammed the rear of a car going downhill at 60 mph in a blinding snowstorm). The poor bike took on an awkward accordion fold from the front wheel to the seat and graduated from being reusable to recyclable.

Recycling runs in our family, in fact. My grandfather worked in a glass factory. I didn't know this until one day I was standing between my mother and the TV. After a few moments, she announced in a somewhat exasperated tone, "Just because your grandfather worked in a glass factory doesn't mean I can see through you!" Anyway, there in the glass factory, bottles and jars that failed inspection due to strange phenomena such as stones, bird-swings, and warped necks, were melted down and recycled into more glassware.

Back in those days, our milk man delivered milk in glass bottles. When a bottle was empty, we washed it and left it in the wire carrier for the milk man to pick up so it could be reused. The bread man, however, never picked up used bread wrappers. Food doesn't seem to fit into the reuse picture. It's either eaten, re-served after re-heating, disguised in some other dish, or composted, unless it's meat or fat and must be sent to feed the vermin at the landfill.

To expand our knowledge of recycling, the Mrs. and I sacrificed two weeks this summer, exploring the subject among vacationers on a tropical island beach in the Caribbean. We chose this place after careful thought. We'd meet a variety of tourists from a variety of countries. Said folks would be relaxed and anxious to talk about something besides the agonies of air travel, gas prices, and how many days until they had to return to the real world. Oddly enough, they didn't think it too strange when this stranger approached them with questions about recycling habits of the folks in their home country or state.

One intriguing recycling story comes from a suburb of New York City.

Recyclers pile stuff into their car trunk, drive to the recycle center, and the workers actually unload it for them, placing items into the proper chute or bin. This center accepts about everything, including tires, paint, and electronics. When the worker pulled a flat bed scanner out of my friend's trunk, he asked if it worked. He was ecstatic when told that it did, indeed work. "Great! We've been waiting for just this model to show up. We need it for the office."

With the help of readers, I'd like to share your recycling and reusing ideas with the rest of the readers for the next few weeks. Drop me a line at jwestbrk@ptd.net.

n Jerry Westbrook is a syndicated columnist living with his wife in Winfield. He writes on recycled paper.