Salvage Savvy

ONE MAN’S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE

 

- Dana Benner

It’s sad to say, but we live in a throwaway society. If something breaks, we simply toss it out and buy a new one. Granted, many modern products, from autos to washing machines, are designed to be discarded. But, the crafty elite in our midst is embracing the time-honored skill of salvage, though today we call it “repurposing” or “recycling,” as if it were something new.

The Resurgence of an Ancient Practice

Salvage yards, which replaced junkyards, are now very popular. I credit salvaging’s comeback to TV shows like “Alaskan Bush People” and “Alaska: The Last Frontier.” Granted, not everything can be created or repaired through salvage, but the folks on these shows seem to do a great deal with very little.

Salvage City

In the Lower 48, there are few areas with an economy driven by the salvage industry, but Key West, Florida, is an exception. To learn more, I traveled south to find out how salvage was, and still is, a viable economic source for this south Florida city. The first stop on my research mission was the Key West Shipwreck Museum. Though the museum is geared to the many tourists that visit Key West, it provides a wealth of information for anyone interested in repurposing discarded material.

When Ponce de Leon “discovered” Florida in 1513, the area that we now know as the Florida Keys was named Los Martires or “the martyrs.” The islands were known to and even visited by early explorers, but the landforms didn’t start appearing on European sailing maps for another century or so. This is too bad, because if they had, then many a sailing ship would have been made aware of the dangerous coral reefs that surround the keys, particularly Key West.