A rural recycling center in Tennessee's Grainger County (population 16,000) has been helping the county get rid of its solid waste since 1983. The center buys aluminum, glass, paper, and other materials from county residents and resells them for reuse by industry. The center does not yet pay its own way. Some of its operating costs come from county funds and some startup costs were financed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Not all benefits are of a kind that show up in an accountant's ledger, however.