I’ve wheeled two barbecue grills to my curb, hoping someone would take them. They did.

I was relieved, but part of me felt guilty both times. The grills were salvageable. I analyzed my history with repair skills, the time it would take, and the probable resulting injuries. My laziness also was duly noted. The curb won.

I am thrilled the grills found a new home, and I can check off one of those boxes under the heading: What have you done for the planet today?

I think I join millions of decent American citizens who have done the same. However, I do not deserve any badges. I throw away a lot of useful stuff. At least that’s how it feels. And this is not easy for me. I grew up with parents who found a way to use most everything they had. I inherited that habit.

My wife likes to tell the story of what my kitchen cabinets were filled with when she was getting to know the real me. She threw away a lot of my precious plastic containers. Not Tupperware, mind you. Instead, I saw great usefulness in empty butter containers. Actually, I saved any plastic thing with a lid.

My oldest son also knows the curb appeal of trash. His house in Denver has a magical alley off the backyard. He can put any item in the alley and it will vanish in minutes. I should warn him to never sit in the alley.

Like all of us, he also tends to toss stuff he no longer wants. Stuff that is still useful.

So now I need to tell you about a guy who is an expert at knowing the difference between trash and treasure. He made it part of his career with the New York City Department of Sanitation. He manned a truck that picked up trash.

When Nelson Molina grabbed one of those black, plastic bags on the curb, he’d give it a shake and listen carefully. He knew the sounds that mattered. After 34 years, he rescued more than 45,000 items from those bags.

He calls it his “Treasures to Trash” collection that takes up the entire second floor of a sanitation garage in East Harlem. It looks a lot like an antique store but is more like a museum – a magnificent display of nostalgia. Along with true treasures such as a stuffed bear, he says, is worth $450, and a book signed by Lena Horn in 1965.

Molina retired in 2015 but stayed as curator of his collection. He became a favorite for journalists who wanted to share his story and passion for rescuing “trash” from landfills and incinerators.

His collection is not for sale. I also don’t think there are public tours. There are videos online, including a great short movie by Heller Films that tells his story.

Author Andrew Larsen and illustrator Oriol Vidal rolled the collection into a picture book: “Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away.” Molina wrote the foreword.

And a professor of anthropology is helping to catalogue the collection, hoping to learn more about cities and the trash they produce.

So Nelson Molina also has turned trash into a bit of stardom. That was not his goal.

His mother told him to never throw anything out if it can be used. When he was 9 years old, he would grab things that people threw away, especially at Christmas time. Old toys. Broken toys that he tried to fix. A habit he never gave up.

Molina hopes the collection opens to the public, but for now, he simply wants people to learn what he learned.

“Before you throw something out, think about it,” he says. “Everything can have a home.”

And that includes my grills. Because, thankfully, there’s a little bit of Nelson Molina in a lot of people in a lot of communities.

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail the NewsTribune, 426 Second St., La Salle IL 61301.