Waste Not Want Not Part III: Trash Talk

 
A few years ago I came across an article in Family Circle magazine that so astonished me I kept it. It was in the March 13, 2001 issue, an article written by Marie Sherlock entitled "No More Trash".  Ms. Sherlock reported that the Cohens of Columbus Ohio had reduced their household garbage to 7 pounds per week.  The average per family at that time was 70 pounds per week. 

However, the discussion I want to make today is not about how much trash we produce, but how often we toss things that might have life in them and to seriously look at what we throw away.

It is such a delicate area really, this balance between saving what might be reused and reaching the level of a hoarder.  I've been saving cardboard boxes and packaging for the purpose of using to make lasagna garden beds.  You can read a synopsis of the method here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2057315_do-lasagna-gardening.html




My purpose is not to only save putting those pieces in the garbage but to allow me a larger gardening area since I am not sure how well I shall manage getting raised beds built.  I figure if I carefully lay out my beds I can 'box them in' later.  Newspapers may also be used as mulching materials and can be shredded as well.  I found this site which lists 163 other items that you can compost
http://www.plantea.com/compost-materials.htm


Of course, it wasn't such a big deal about trash in my great grandmother's day.  Newspapers were reused, scraps of clothing were reused, food stuffs were used to feed the family first and foremost, livestock and pets second and composted at the last if there was anything more to be had.

I was looking at this quilt top of Big Mama's on Monday after I brought it in doors.  Some of the squares are actually pieces of the same fabric which were sewn together to make them large enough for a square.  It is truly a scrap quilt, not a quilt made simply for the purpose of being decorative but to use up what was on hand.  Brown paper bags wrapped packages, books, and more.  Many and many an old home used old newspaper as insulation in the walls or ceiling.  Furniture was kept until it was so broken and beyond repair, appliances weren't replaced until they were beyond repair (forget changing them out because new ones had a certain finish that was desirable) and yet these items were kept to provide parts to repair other pieces of furniture and appliances.

I've been urging my kids for years now to go to antique and thrift stores to look for replacement furnishings.  Often these pieces are solid wood, something we can't buy new anymore.  Katie and I were discussing a dresser she was debating selling or leaving behind.  "Well you might want to keep it.  It is solid wood and a vintage 1950's piece under the paint and paper finish you put on it."  "Really?" she asked, "It's that old?"  "Yep, it was your grandmother's and I wish I'd brought home the dresser and bedside tables that matched!"  Katie's interest in trashing or selling diminished.  The value of the piece went up in her mind on several scores, not the least being that it was her grandmother's, not to mention still quite useful.

 I noted that Sandra Lee's Money Saving Meals is shot in a small gallery sized kitchen with a window sill at one end.  On that window sill are the prettiest herbs...growing in recycled tin cans!  Well why not?  Why not use the cans for growing herbs or rooting cut stems of other plants?  Even if you reuse an item only once you've saved it going into the landfill that one time.  Reuse it several times over and you are making a large impact on the earth and your pocket book (you'll not need to buy a flower pot).  Over the years I've seen photos of tin cans used to make cute lanterns, utensil holders for the kitchen and more.

For all the years that I knew her, Granny used a tin can, with holes punched in the bottom to hold the silverware in the dish drainer.  She never bought a dish drainer with a utensil holder attached, preferring the tin can. 

I'm learning to look long and hard at how items are packaged before I bring them home.  I'm far more prone these days to skip buying a product I like if I know it has an excessive amount of packaging. I  just can't justify the extra material coming into my home.  I look more and more for items packaged in glass jars.  One popular brand of salad dressing we like comes in a Ball jar.  Yes, that's right a canning jar!  And you can bet that whenever that is item is on my shopping list, I check that brand first because canning jars in my home are storage jars, canning jars, and gift jars.

I also look for re-usable packaging.  Some of the luncheon meats and a few other items now come in plastic containers with snap on lids.  These containers are re-useable and have a fairly long life in my household.  John's lunch items are often packaged in these containers (not those foods he might reheat).  I use them in the fridge for storage.   They have even found their way into my craft and tool areas because they are so handy for small like items such as buttons or screws.

When Katie was home, recycling was no problem.  Cardboard boxes, tubes and papers from junk mail, styrofoam fruit trays etc were craft materials.  So were tin cans, plastic bottles (oh the cute cute snowmen we made one year from creamer bottles with a funny looking red snap top that resembled a stocking cap on their heads), magazines and more.  Give that girl a bottle of glue and a pair of scissors and she would make the cutest things for gifts, toys, Barbie house furnishings, etc.  I noted that last year the local church preschool program sent out a request for such items to boost their craft program.  And isn't Etsy just full of items that might have been trash but were repurposed with an artistic flair?  

I've already stated that I'd begun to save old t-shirts that were too stained to wear.  I realized the other day that the stained front will make great rags for messy jobs like washing cars etc, while the backs will be used as material.  It's not like I go through shirts by the dozens each week or even each year, so they won't be stacking up too high in the house. 

I am not by any means advising we save mountains of tin cans or enough glass beer bottles to build a house (although last year V and Katie had fun finding web photos of various ways to use glass bottles to make chandeliers, a rather unique Christmas tree, bookshelves and more).  There are just so many ways we can reuse things we'd normally and quite naturally toss into the trash.  And if it provides a need for our home (cereal box magazine holders for instance) or a source of income (broken china mosaic covered tables) then why not USE it instead of throwing it away?  If you're unsure of how to reuse an item then look online to see what someone else has done.  I promise you that there is very little someone somewhere hasn't tried to use in a creative way.  And if you manage to get just that much more use out of something destined to go in the garbage anyway, well why not share it and let others see how you did it?

I think the Cohen family had an admirable goal in reducing their family garbage.  It's long been a goal of mine to reduce the amount  of trash we produce in our home as well...and I'm doing that every single time I look at an item and think, "I could use that to make...." and then do it.