Shizara
31-05-2015, 10:03 AM
From time to time I listen to today's greenies waffling on about recycling and how we must do it to save the planet, the plastic bags are clogging up the sea, waterways, land etc as if recycling was a new invention. Some food for thought:
1. Milk used to arrive in glass bottles: Oddly, after using the milk, unlike today we didn't throw the bottle away, it was washed and put out for the milkman or returned to the shop and handed over when purchasing another bottle of milk. Your empty bottle went back, was washed and amazingly, recycled.
2. Soft drink bottles: These were also glass and you paid a deposit for them. You could bring your empty bottle back and recover the deposit or it would be returned and you could purchase another bottle of soft drink minus the bottle deposit charge. The bottles, surprisingly, were returned, washed and to use that magic word of today..... RECYCLED.
3. Supermarket or corner store bags: These were paper and after the original use they were carefully folded and could be used for many things. Never wasted.
4. Kitchen scraps / peelings: If you had a garden you collected them in a bucket with a lid and when full you buried them in the garden, added to the compost heap or, in the case of peelings, if you had chickens they could be boiled into the mash.
5. Getting to school: We usually walked, cycled or went by bus. Being delivered and picked up in the parental school run seldom happened, in fact, for the most part families didn't have a second car or 4 wheel drive to do this and in doing so did not consume so much in the way of fuel for the cars.
6. Food waste: Very little was actually wasted. If my Mum purchased meat for a weekend roast for our family of 4 it was a roast for the first meal, thin slices cut to go in sandwiches for lunches and everything that could be used was put through the mincer, onion, carrots and peas etc added and a potato topped pie - potatoes boiled and mashed not from a packet or a plastic supermarket container - was created for yet another evening meal.
7. Working parents: My father was the main breadwinner when I was a child, Mum had an industrial sewing machine and made ballet shoes. Later, she worked outside of the home part time. She planned her meals ahead. Usually roast dinners were planned for a time when we were all there and we sat at the table. Every night we had meat and 3 vegetables, distinctively 3 colours - orange, green and white. We had a dessert every night but that was more my father's insistance. It might be a hot pudding such as rice, tapioca or steam pudding or something as simple as stewed fruit or even an apple, perhaps a bit past its crisp, juicy best that had the core removed and was stuffed with dried fruit like raisins or dates, a little brown sugar, baked and served with custard. Saturday lunch was invariably what was known as 'bread and scrape' but it might include soup, pikelets or scones.
8. Rubbish bags: I don't know if it applied here but our local council delivered strong, paper rubbish sacks once a year with the council branding. You could purchase more though they had to have the council branding on them before they would be picked up, but they were paper not plastic.
I am sure there are many other examples but my point is that recycling is NOT an invention of today's world, in fact it is because of many of the changes that have taken place in recent times eg replacing paper bags with plastic, glass bottles that were washed/reused replaced with plastic and tetra pack type cartons. I suspect they were, for the most part, money saving changes in the budgets of companies and councils.
The cost of living is certainly higher than it was pre the days of computers, mobile phones and other must-have technology. I am not suggesting we return to those days gone by as life is about moving forward and learning new things but perhaps a few lessons from the past should be considered rather than ignored.
Very likely I have ranted about this previously but feel it is subject worth repeating.
1. Milk used to arrive in glass bottles: Oddly, after using the milk, unlike today we didn't throw the bottle away, it was washed and put out for the milkman or returned to the shop and handed over when purchasing another bottle of milk. Your empty bottle went back, was washed and amazingly, recycled.
2. Soft drink bottles: These were also glass and you paid a deposit for them. You could bring your empty bottle back and recover the deposit or it would be returned and you could purchase another bottle of soft drink minus the bottle deposit charge. The bottles, surprisingly, were returned, washed and to use that magic word of today..... RECYCLED.
3. Supermarket or corner store bags: These were paper and after the original use they were carefully folded and could be used for many things. Never wasted.
4. Kitchen scraps / peelings: If you had a garden you collected them in a bucket with a lid and when full you buried them in the garden, added to the compost heap or, in the case of peelings, if you had chickens they could be boiled into the mash.
5. Getting to school: We usually walked, cycled or went by bus. Being delivered and picked up in the parental school run seldom happened, in fact, for the most part families didn't have a second car or 4 wheel drive to do this and in doing so did not consume so much in the way of fuel for the cars.
6. Food waste: Very little was actually wasted. If my Mum purchased meat for a weekend roast for our family of 4 it was a roast for the first meal, thin slices cut to go in sandwiches for lunches and everything that could be used was put through the mincer, onion, carrots and peas etc added and a potato topped pie - potatoes boiled and mashed not from a packet or a plastic supermarket container - was created for yet another evening meal.
7. Working parents: My father was the main breadwinner when I was a child, Mum had an industrial sewing machine and made ballet shoes. Later, she worked outside of the home part time. She planned her meals ahead. Usually roast dinners were planned for a time when we were all there and we sat at the table. Every night we had meat and 3 vegetables, distinctively 3 colours - orange, green and white. We had a dessert every night but that was more my father's insistance. It might be a hot pudding such as rice, tapioca or steam pudding or something as simple as stewed fruit or even an apple, perhaps a bit past its crisp, juicy best that had the core removed and was stuffed with dried fruit like raisins or dates, a little brown sugar, baked and served with custard. Saturday lunch was invariably what was known as 'bread and scrape' but it might include soup, pikelets or scones.
8. Rubbish bags: I don't know if it applied here but our local council delivered strong, paper rubbish sacks once a year with the council branding. You could purchase more though they had to have the council branding on them before they would be picked up, but they were paper not plastic.
I am sure there are many other examples but my point is that recycling is NOT an invention of today's world, in fact it is because of many of the changes that have taken place in recent times eg replacing paper bags with plastic, glass bottles that were washed/reused replaced with plastic and tetra pack type cartons. I suspect they were, for the most part, money saving changes in the budgets of companies and councils.
The cost of living is certainly higher than it was pre the days of computers, mobile phones and other must-have technology. I am not suggesting we return to those days gone by as life is about moving forward and learning new things but perhaps a few lessons from the past should be considered rather than ignored.
Very likely I have ranted about this previously but feel it is subject worth repeating.