Recycled Life

Clemert Lee has been a Denver Post reporter, a saxophonist and clarinetist, a court reporter and a Navy security guard. Now, however, Lee is 80 and, because "no one wants to hire a man my age," he went into business for himself three years ago. His job, as he puts it, is "cleaning up America."

With his wife of 52 years, Lee tramps along the West's interstate highways, picking up aluminum beer and soft-drink cans. "Ain't people nasty the way they throw junk all over the roadside?" said Lee last week, taking a break along the shoulder of Highway 15 in the middle of the Mojave Desert. He shuffled a half mile back down the road to a camper where his wife Grace, 72, was watching over a dozen sacks and cardboard cartons brimful with cans. "It's just terrible to see this litter," she said. "But picking it up is fun. We get good exercise, and the fresh air revives us."

The Lees can collect as many as 500 cans a day, which they sell for about $20 to a salvage dealer near their home in San Diego. But they profess not to be worried about the low monetary return. Says Clemert Lee: "Cleaning up America is better than sitting at home twiddling my thumbs."

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