recycling is an old art

The environment is a hot issue right now. It seems that the "hip and new" thing to do is to reduce, reuse, and recycle in order to avoid depleting our resources as well as creating less trash.  I regularly wash Ziploc bags for reuse and I buy food in bulk packages to avoid waste, and I have even started taking my own bags to the grocery store. These things are my way of doing my part.

I do, however, realize that recycling has actually been around for a long, long time.

The original recyclers  were my grandparent's age, children of the depression.  Granted, their reasons for recycling were not generally environmental; they reduced, reused and recycled because their early memories are awash with going without: missed meals, ragged clothes and even homelessness.

My Grandma Mom told me stories of packing up all of the family's belongings, along with the three kids, and heading out to the California desert to live in a tent.  Indefinitely.  Her stories seemed full of laughter and adventure, but I know that the reality must have been quite scary and even hopeless.  I never knew my grandma to make an impulse purchase and she reused jars and boxes for storage rather than using Tupperware.  Food was always homemade, and menus were based on the week's grocery sales.

My Grandma Lita raised 4 children by herself in a time when that was uncommon.  She had a way of spreading a dollar farther than anyone I have ever known.  She made all of her own clothes and grocery shopping was done at several stores in order to tap all of the bargains in town.  Birthday gifts were never extravagant, but the present was always something wanted, generally purchased months ahead of time while on sale.

My husband's grandma is the ultimate recycler.  Birthday cards generally feature a line such as "Happy Birthday Son" with "Grand" neatly scribed to create the appropriate title of "Grandson".  This is in no way tacky or thoughtless on her part, she simply sees no reason for buying something when she can make do with what she already has.  For years she has sent my kids a collection of "Mini-Pages" every couple of months, and I know that, from her, this is a precious gift.

She and her husband both worked for years at McDonald-Douglas and both retired with full pensions, but their only "extravagance" has every been a new car every few years.  Other than that and a small but well-kept house, you would never know that they had much.  Luckily, my husband learned from them about how to handle money.

Reducing, reusing and recycling are important things to do, but just don't make the mistake of thinking that it is "hip and new".  Recycling has been around for a long, long time, but for a while, we just made the mistake of thinking that the old ways were outdated.

Comments

[jessi]

what great stories - thanks for sharing!

[Jodie]

This is a winderful post Randi... Thanks for sharing your memories!!!

[rohanknitter]

You are so right. When I think of my grandmother's and dh's grandmother's - frugal could describe all of them. Sometimes we'd giggle at their thrifty habits (such as Gramma's carefully cleaned and stored piles of styrofoam meat trays from the grocery store) but we could stand to learn a lot from them, I think.

[sarah]

I like this one Randi, This has been on my mind lately, and we have had to live in a tent and so on, with the fact that prices are rising on everything, here for sure, we try to save and reuse as much as possible. Great Blog!

[Tracy]

Great post! Isn't it amazing what our elders had to do to make ends meet. Stories like these remind me of how spoiled we've become.

[Autum]

Great post! All those things remind me of my granny.

[Sharon]

This is so true! My grandparents were like this. I wish I had paid more attention. So much I could have learned!

[Gina]

I agree. My grandmother is also very thrifty, saving the littlest amount of leftovers in the tiniest jars and containers you can imagine. I get teased for doing the same thing from time to time, but hey, I'm just embracing my heritage, right?

[Keri]

You're totally right about recycling being old as time itself. I think it's sad that for the past 20 years or so "recycling" was seen as some sort of bad thing. Find something on the side of the road? Gross! Being resourceful wasn't seen as something smart, it was seen as something you did because you were cheap, or poor. And lots of people still feel this way unfortunately.

[Sandra-MyInspiredHeart]

Randi...how true! My grandparents shared lots of recycling stories and lived out their beliefs on reusing and re-purposing everything. Their opinion was "Why spend your hard-earned money on something 'new' when you can use what you already have?" As I get older I am completely understanding the meaning of this. I hardly buy anything new if I can help it, I try to use and re-purpose what I have and have learned that less is really more.... I just wish that more people in my area felt the same way. Most folks around here are into excessive consumption and look at you as cheap or poor when you mention any of these ideas! By the way, I love the idea of taking your own shopping bags to the store! I'll have to do that!

[Michelle]

Old quilts are a great example of recycling. I have one that my great grandmother started and never finished. I can tell that some fabric scraps were new (left over pieces from homemade clothing) and others pieces came from worn out clothing that were beyond repair. A priceless treasure.

[Stacy]

Great post and so true! My grandparents grew up in the depression and they went without a lot. They know how to recycle everything for another use. We just have too much "stuff" these days and don't need to recycle. They did it out of necessity for themselves, we have to do out necessity for the Earth.

[Lawanda]

We have always been recyclers to an extent, here. My grandma was so good at it, too.

The things they used to recycle amaze me! I really wish I could get my family now on board to do it like they did in the old days. Less consuming, more recycling can only be a good thing, imo!

[amanda]

I feel I've always been a recycler. And I know it has had everything to do with the impact my depression era grandma had on my life. She could make anything out of nothing. And she was always working on some project. She was so creative and resourceful.
amanda

[Allie]

Thank you for this essay - so interesting and though-provoking!
Allie

[miss chris]

Good stuff, Randi.

I was thinking the other day about not only this, but how so many people are buying 'new' things because the new things are 'recycled' or from some earth-friendly material... to replace what they already have.... ?? More stuff is more stuff, in my opinion. Making do, now that is living green-wise. :) Thanks for your post. xo

[Marsha]

Whenever I am around my husband's grandma, I am encouraged even more to live simply (but abundantly) and make the most out of everything I have.

Thoughtfulness goes a lot further in a gift than actual dollar amound spent!

[Becky]

We recycle everything in our house. In fact, I was at a church meeting tonight and when I went to throw my paper nametag away on the way out I was appalled at the "trash" that had been discarded. I was dying to go through the trappings and remove every water bottle and red plastic Solo cup to take it home and recycle it.

But I didn't.

I am so glad we had such role models in the generations before. I think somehow the whole concept skipped a generation and I hope our own kids start it all back again.

Thanks for the reminders.

[Renna]

I'm older than you, Randi, so some of those stories I can relate to include my mom and my Grandma (Nanny). Their family loaded up everything on the back of the truck, leaving the Oklahoma dust behind to find work in Oklahoma. They also lived in tents, just as your grandma. They did eventually end up back in Oklahoma, though many of my aunts and uncles and cousins stayed out there to make lives for themselves.

When my Nanny died, I cleaned out her kitchen for my mom. I must have found 200 Cool Whip bowls (and lids!). What I found amazing was how neat and tidy my Nanny was, despite all she had collected. Me, I collect, but can't seem to keep it organized!

Great post today, Randi. :-)

[Kate]

awww, Grandma Lita....isn't it amazing that she made all her clothes, but looking back at pictures, she always looked so beautiful?! She is an Amazing woman and definatly someone who we should all look up to, we are so blessed to be her granddaughters :)
Thanks for the great reminder about recycling, it is so easy to just be "lazy" or just not feel like recycling, when it is something we need to take seriously right now! :)

[Kysha]

I really need to be more committed to this. We would always start then stop doing this. Thanks for visiting my bloggy. You have to view it through Internet Explorer's browser though. I don't know why. weird.

[Felicia]

Its sad how thrift and recycling have become unfashionable. We live in a wasteful society where big business's ads scream at us that we have to have (fill in the blank). I find there are very few things that I HAVE to have.

And the trampoline in the neighbors yard that was given as a Christmas gift sits collecting falling leaves and has been used probably a total of an hour in the past few months. And there are trampolines in every other backyard sitting as silent sentries.