Passage 1

Ian Guppy smiles broadly in his sunny backyard. “Point in any direction,” he says, “and you'll find junk.”The 46-year-old engineer is midway through framing a ten-by-ten-foot greenhouse, made almost entirely of castoffs.

“How many shovels have you collected?”asks his wife, Elizabeth Peirce.

Guppy walks into his workshop, where there are different types of snow shovels, some so new their stickers are still on. And inside the house are more second-hand items, including a suitcase. The couple found most of these goods within four blocks of their home. For them, it's not necessarily about saving money. “I could afford to buy a suitcase，” Peirce says. “But sometimes I see things and they're crying out to be pulled from the trash. There's just so much out there that's too good to waste.”

In Halifax, roughly 64,000 tons of residential curbside (马路边）waste is collected annually. While citizens such as Peirce and Guppy are helping to reduce the amount of waste, the city government is also taking action. The city now holds biannual “Curbside Giveaway Weekends" when residents put out items they no longer want. Similar events are held across Canada.