By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Even the garbage on Orcas gets the creative treatment. The Exchange, Orcas Island's homegrown version of Barter Town and a favorite shop-and-swap spot for locals, is situated next to the island dump, a million metaphorical miles from mainland malls.

Behind a shack labeled A.R.T. (Appropriate Recycling Technology) is a two-acre city of post-garage-sale, pre-dump Stuff -- capital S. It is divided into sections by paths carpeted with hideous long shag carpet, turned upside down. In one corner are manual typewriters with yellowed keys, in another a hundred rusting bikes next to a limping army of used lawn mowers. One sadsack red-and-white gas mower sprouts ivy from its long ailing innards.

"It can get pretty grim. This is where orange place mats come to die," says George Post, who founded the re-use refuse center more than a decade ago and who uses materials scavenged there to create wire sculptures adorned with what used to be someone's costume jewelry.

The philosophy at The Exchange is to minimize waste, maximize value. Customers pay, but name their own price: seven bucks for a slightly battered crab ring, a twenty for a fancy French bidet. Extra money is channeled into non-profits, including a local fund to clean up oil spills and a county land trust, which uses a 1 percent county excise tax on real estate sales to buy up island properties and preserve open space.