Everything Old Is New Again

I was in Austin Friday, going to tech startup/incubator/mentoring quasi-business quasi-service provider. It's the kind of place that's all over Silicon Valley, and which the owners of the place in Austin are trying to get going in Texas. I met a lot of engaging entrepreneurs, I saw that my brother-in-law and I are farther along than most people, and I heard some interesting ideas. But one business in particular struck me as something you could really only get going in Austin, and yet it was also something that my grandmother must have done in the depths of the Depression.
   One guy has started a business recovering yarn from old sweaters. Really. And he's making money doing it.
   I had a few thoughts. My first was 'Only in Austin' my second was 'He must have been laid off in the last two years,' my third was 'That's actually kind of cool' and my fourth was 'What else did my grandmother do that no one's doing now?'
   Back in the Depression people recycled everything. EVERYTHING. That's why things like old tin toys and copies of Action Comics #1 are so rare, they were all recycled. When clothes got worn enough that they weren't presentable for company they became work clothes, and when they were worn enough that they weren't suitable for that they became rags and when they were so used up they couldn't be rags any more they got left for the rag picker who probably sold the scraps to be incorporated into paper currency. The ultimate in economically-enforced frugality.
   And this guy, the sweater recycler guy, probably hit on his idea independently, I don't imagine he studied Depression-era re-use principles. Although it is Austin, maybe the dude's got a PhD in it.
   It's with the Baby Boomers that we got the throwaway economy. Growth predicated on planned obsolescence. That crap don't fly no more. People are keeping things longer, cars, clothes, houses, furniture, what have you. And they're looking for sustainability; they don't want fresh-cut timber, they want the wood that's re-used from the demolished factory. And if they knit they want yarn that's recovered from discarded sweaters.
   I think his idea has legs. And not just for yarn, for everything. I know I like to buy things once. If I buy a vacuum cleaner I'm going to have that appliance until the color fades and the wheels drop off. Same with my cars. Same with my clothes. And furniture. And pots and pans. So if I were an entrepreneur, perhaps with a mind to manufacture things, I'd go for quality right now. Made in the USA, durable, quality stuff. You could charge more for it because it would last. And I know customers would respond.
   And if you could figure a way to dismantle, say, a couch into its component parts and re-purpose them, you'd have something. For as long as you had discarded couches, I suppose.