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.
