What We Got Wrong About Glo Carts

I thought about this post about Glo Carts which discussed how it’s business plan for life-cycle analysis is wasteful, among many other things. I started imagining how it would feel to be on the other side of that door, having your work criticized in a way that could really hurt your self-esteem. I also thought back to my post about Glo Carts where I called them “eco-terrorists” – just because they collect recyclables from landfills doesn’t necessarily mean they are any different than traditional recycling companies.

You see, I’ve never worked on the other side of the door…I’ve never picked up recyclables on behalf of Glo Carts…I’ve never done anything with Glo Carts. I’m not even sure what the logo means.

On that day, I drove through East Dallas driving an SUV with tall-ish trees behind me, and saw an orange truck with the logo “Glo Carts”. It looked like he was picking up street garbage.

I thought about this post about Glo Carts which discussed how it’s business plan for life-cycle analysis is wasteful, among many other things. I started imagining how it would feel to be on the other side of that door, having your work criticized in a way that could really hurt your self-esteem. I also thought back to my post about Glo Carts where I called them “eco-terrorists” – just because they collect recyclables from landfills doesn’t necessarily mean they are any different than traditional recycling companies.

You see, I’ve never worked on the other side of the door…I’ve never picked up recyclables on behalf of Glo Carts…I’ve never done anything with Glo Carts. I’m not even sure what the logo means.

I’m not saying that my account is any more valid than the author’s account, but I do think an encounter like this would be a unique way to learn about a business you did not understand or did not think was worthy of praise.

A few days later, I went to the DART station in East Dallas and saw an orange truck with the logo “Glo Carts”. I thought about it again, and thought to myself: How does this business plan know we’re going to recycle? I mean, we’re just going to throw our stuff into a giant garbage machine and hope that everything gets recycled? That’s kind of like if we just dropped our stuff into a dumpster and hoped that it got recycled eventually.

Instead, I think that “Glo Carts” could be a company that simply collects reusable items from landfills to sell to a local thrift store. The DART pickup would be called a “Back-ups & Salvage” pick-up since it’s essentially intended for trash. Since Glo Carts is the only company in Dallas that does this, it makes sense they would use their own name.