I hope you didn't swipe any o-rings off the shuttle, it needs them.
And recycling isn't as bad as the OP makes it out to be... Aluminum is much better to recycle than mining and refining new aluminum, newspapers here get loaded up on a truck and sent to the insulation making factory, and glass gets ground up and used in roads/asphalt mixes.
I kind of wish that there was a re-use center, something like Craigslist, but where people could drop off things they don't need, and other people can pick up things they could use. Scrap pieces of wood, sheet metal, bolts, tools, pallets, boxes, bikes, car parts, etc...