????利用業余時間在猶他州雪松堡經營牧場的韋斯頓?奧爾特最近碰到了一個新問題：他的40頭奶牛和公牛瘙癢難忍，不斷地推翻用來搔背的柵欄柱。所以，當他聽說致力于研究重新利用工業舊設備的荷蘭公司Repurposed Materials（意為改變用途的材料）有一個新穎的解決方案時，他決定冒險一試，隨后花費150美元購買了兩個舊的街道清掃車刷。奧爾特打算將它們垂直擺放在牛欄中，用以幫助他的牛解除瘙癢之苦。布朗克斯動物園(The Bronx Zoo)已經買了好幾個。“我剛選好，”他咯咯地笑道。“我們說話這工夫，它們已經裝上我的卡車了。”?

????Weston Ault is a part-time rancher with a problem. His 40 cows and bulls in Cedar Fort, Utah, are so itchy that they've been pushing over fence posts scratching their backs. So when he heard about a novel solution from Repurposed Materials, a Denver company that specializes in figuring out ways to reuse old industrial equipment, he decided to take a chance, spending $150 for two old industrial street-sweeper brushes. He will mount them vertically in the cattle's pen as backscratchers. The Bronx Zoo has already bought several. "I just picked them up," he says, chuckling. "They're in my truck as we speak."?

????他從另一個牧場主那里聽說了這種街道清掃車刷。這位牧場主是那家公司創始人達蒙?卡森的電子通訊訂戶之一。這份周刊擁有大約2.5萬名讀者，致力于宣傳各種古怪的產品，比如使用過的滑雪纜車電纜。本周的產品名錄包括“兩座800噸重、用玻璃纖維制造的冷卻塔。它們即將在未來30到60天內斷線拆除。”在回收利用行業，大多數企業往往選擇把舊物分解成零部件的回收方式，但Repurposed Materials公司一直致力于探尋現有產品的創新用途。卡森說：“我們熱切地尋找各種工業廢棄物，希望為它們帶來完全不同的第二次生命。”

????卡森擁有垃圾處理業務的背景。他曾經在韋爾和布雷肯里奇經營過一家成功的垃圾處理企業，但在2002年賣掉了公司，轉而尋求其他創業機會。就在這時候，與一位畫家的談話促使他展開了下一個行動。“他說，‘要是你有機會買一個廣告牌的話，就買下來吧，因為乙烯塑料罩是非常好的繪畫罩布。”卡森買了一堆，隨后轉售給他們。他說：“于是我開始琢磨，工業界的副產品和廢棄物是不是足以支撐起這樣一門生意。”

????Repurposed Materials由此誕生。用卡森一位朋友的話說，這并不是一家回收企業，而是“工業界的丘比特。”直到最近，這家公司位于丹佛的1.5英畝廠區甚至沒有圍欄，因為人們并不認為廠區內有什么值得偷的東西。

????但他們錯了。韋爾滑雪場的電纜？它現在歸明尼蘇達州一家疏浚承包商所有。（其他電纜被用作住宅樓梯的扶手。）破舊的商業漁網？它們現在被用作擊球練習的擋網。咖啡業用過的粗麻袋？向市場運送小龍蝦的途中，新奧爾良農民使用它們來控制溫度。舊廣告牌？美國陸軍游騎兵使用它的剛性部件來建造迷宮一樣的訓練設施，從而為納稅人省了不少錢。

????He heard about the street sweepers from another rancher, who had seen them in founder Damon Carson's quirky e-newsletter, sent to some 25,000 readers. The weekly advertises everything from used ski lift cables to -- this week -- "two 800 ton, fiberglass cooling towers being disconnected and removed in the next 30-60 days." Unlike most companies in the reclamation business, which recycle items by breaking them down into their component parts, Repurposed Materials is all about finding innovative new uses for existing products. "We are looking for the castoffs of industry that can get a very different second life," Carson says.

????Carson has a background in waste -- he ran a successful garbage business in Vail and Breckenridge and sold it in 2002 -- but had moved on to other entrepreneurial endeavors when a conversation with a painter led him to his next act. "He said, 'If you ever get a chance to buy an advertising billboard, buy it, because [the vinyl covering] makes a great dropcloth for painting.'" Carson bought a bunch and resold them. "I started to wonder if there's enough byproducts and waste in industry to make a whole business out of this," he says.

????And so was born Repurposed Materials, which is not a recycler at all but rather what a friend of Carson's christened "an industrial Cupid." The company's 1.5-acre space in Denver wasn't even fenced in until recently, because people didn't think anything was worth stealing.

????But they were wrong. Cable from a ski resort in Vail? It's now owned by a dredging contractor in Minnesota. (Other cable is made into handrails for residential stairways.) Commercial fishing nets with holes in them? They're now used for batting cages. Burlap sacks from the coffee industry? Crawfish farmers in New Orleans use them for temperature control on the way to the market. Old billboards? The U.S. Army Rangers are saving taxpayers money by using the rigid parts to build a training maze.