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Sep 5, 2006

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold." --Leo Tolstoy

From Garbage To Gold

Two years ago, Eli Reich was a mechanical engineer consultant for a Seattle wind energy company when his messenger bag was stolen. Reich, who rode his bike to work every day, decided that instead of buying a new one, he would simply fashion another bag out of used bicycle-tire inner tubes that were lying around his house. Soon compliments on his sturdy black handmade messenger bag turned into requests and Alchemy Goods was born in the basement of his apartment building with the motto -- Turning Useless into Useful. Entrepreneurs are creating companies that exploit the creative opportunities in other people's junk, sparing the environment in the process.