One morning, after sweeping the kitchen floor, I sat by a window to watch for orioles. No orioles arrived at the feeder, but I did see something I’d never seen before.

Rolling down the alley, a very nice black truck crept along at a snail’s pace. It moved so slowly that it caught my attention.

An older man was driving, and he scoured neighborhood yards intently, as if searching for something lost.

When he arrived at my backyard, he stopped and stepped out. Then, he looked around furtively, walked to my garbage can and took out a broom I’d discarded.

He examined it in detail, shook it to test its mettle, approved of it and placed it in his truck, looking around again in case someone had seen him. Then, off he drove with the broom.

Now, this broom had been getting in my way for decades. I bought it after I’d had a broom with a plastic handle and plastic bristles, one that left so much dirt behind with each sweep that I quickly realized I needed a broom made of studier, more reliable materials.

I searched for one with a good wooden handle and real corn bristles, not plastic. Then I found this beauty. It had a very thick, solid wood handle coated with a hard, red plastic -- but that was the only plastic.

It had five or six rows of binding stitches, and it looked like it would last forever.

I soon realized, though, that because it was so solid, it was very heavy and hard to wield. My arms ached after each sweeping session.

When the plastic coating along the handle split a few months later, it cut up my hand whenever I used it.

Since it was so well made, however, I didn’t want to get rid of it. It sat in the corner, getting in the way, toppling frequently and blocking my pantry.

I inherited a nice, light, wooden-handled broom with corn bristles. The handle is 1-inch, not 2 inches in diameter.

One day, I looked at the sturdy broom I never used and realized its time had come. I’d give it to The Salvation Army, but who would want a broom – no matter how solidly made – with a cracked coating that rips your hands? No one, I concluded.

So, I placed it, bristles up, in the garbage can, and that’s when the broom skulker came by.

Maybe he has the skill to remove the plastic coating on the handle. Maybe he has the strength to handle its weight. I hope he gets long life out of it.

It likely won’t be worth his time and effort, though, to reclaim the broom when better brooms are available.

Some things are best discarded when they don’t work.

France’s 5-million-euro experiment in solar-panel highways is one. It was a strong idea, powering homes with solar roadways, but they didn’t count on wear and tear of nature, and they’ve had to replace countless cracked and moldy panels.

Cities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on bad policies that only exacerbate the homeless problem. The policies sound compassionate, but the result isn’t. Time to discard a few bad ideas.

Measures to fight crime in big cities, like gun buyback programs, often seem to backfire. Dump. Trash. Discard. Look for something new.

Various packages of top-down education programs with promising names can prevent teachers from teaching their best. These shouldn’t be recycled and slapped with a new name. To the garbage dump with them.

Occasionally, you just need a clean sweep.

Donna Marmorstein lives and writes in Aberdeen. Email dkmarmorstein@yahoo.com.