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Like many Americans, Cliff Humphrey recycles paper and glass and takes his own bags to the grocery store. But unlike newer converts to the environmental movement, Humphrey has been conserving resources for more than 23 years.
Dubbed the Grandfather of Recycling by the National Recycling Coalition, Humphrey was a radical proponent of ecology long before the term became a household word.
"I don't know how they settled on grandfather," said Humphrey. "They didn't ask me. But I think it's accurate in that since I started (promoting recycling) there are two or three generations of recyclers."
In 1967, Humphrey, a former archaeology student at University of California, Berkeley, founded Ecology Action and set up the country's first drop-off recycling center.
Living communally in a house in Berkeley, the group of young revolutionaries sought to change the world by convincing people to rethink the way they lived. Ecology Action was featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine pushing a homemade globe in a baby buggy as part of the paper's coverage of the first Earth Day in 1970.
"Through the `50s and `60s, the basic premise of our society was that growth was good -- bigger and better everything," Humphrey was quoted as saying at the time. "But now that premise is changing, it's being replaced by an idea more simple and more universal: the ability of the planet to support life can't be diminished."
Unlike many activists, Humphrey didn't leave the movement. At 53, his face a bit fuller, his forehead a bit longer and glasses a bit thicker, Humphrey remains an articulate and tireless spokesman for planet Earth.
After two decades of working for non-profit community groups and public agencies, Humphrey last November took his beliefs in "resource conservation, resource allocation and resource equity" to the private sector.
Although he is making far more than the $10 an hour he gratefully received from nonprofit groups, Humphrey claims he hasn't sold out. The business sector is where the resource management action is, he explained.
As director of integrated waste management services at the environmental consulting firm of Dames & Moore, Humphrey expects a salary of between $50,000 and $60,000 within a few years. Despite his move to the private sector, Humphrey continues...