by Colleen Vanderlinden
Design & Architecture

Photo Credit: RaMell Ross.
What happens to old aluminum highway signs when they are taken down, traded in for new ones with updated information? I assumed they were recycled, since they’re aluminum, but the reflective paint most of them are painted with makes the recycling process impossible, as it adds too many impurities into the mix. What to do?
The Greensboro, Alabama chapter of YouthBuild (an organization devoted to teaching trade skills to low-income young people while helping them get a GED) got a load of the signs from their county and state highway departments, and got to work cutting them up into pickets. The pickets, when rearranged and added to wooden framing, made a colorful, creative privacy fence to surround the playground of a local day care center.
(Source: www.treehugger.com )