Recycling and "The Green Thing"

[LovelyLadyLux]

I know that I try but I find that even recycling is getting expensive. I have 3 different bins to funnel my stuff into and it all has to be sorted, washed and separated. In my work place we have a plethora of recycling - different types of containers go into different containers and different papers have to be recycled appropriately too.

I'm from the "good old days" when most of the following was in order. I never bought an air freshner - I opened the windows. I never bought paper towels - that is what I used all my old towels, linens and flannel pjs for. I never had tupperware coming out my ears.

Not quite on the subject but part of the "Green" thing (I think) we (dtr, twins and me) sent into a Pet Store cause the boys love looking at the animals and fishes. You have to sanitize your hands going in, re-sanitize before you touch any animals and then sanitize one more time before exiting!! I used to shovel horse, cow and goat manure, to say nothing of the chickens, ducks and rabbits with my bare hands and I'm positive the pitch fork probably fell into the manure a few times and I picked it back up!

I'm starting to think sometimes that we're going soooo GREEN that our bodies are not going to be able to fight off a single bacteria or bug. I got a bath once a week IN my baby brothers used bath water and I survived.......Dunno - just a general rant on my part that has been precipitated by me getting this "funny" (yeah right) email..........



The Green Thing

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."


The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana .


In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.


When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.


Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.


We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.


We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.


We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?


Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

The Green Thing

[Horus]

So much of what you are saying is true LLL we really did recycle more and were greener because everything was more basic, most things came without all the packaging we see today. I once posted a set of photographs that I took of all the packaging that came with a bog standard computer mouse I had bought, it consisted of a heavy outer cardboard box that was covered in shrink wrapped plastic, an inner cardboard insert that reduced the boxes internal area by half and created an insert area that held another flat card that was in itself covered in a hard plastic heat sealed mouse shaped cover that needed to be remove with scisssors as it was so thick and finally within this module was the mouse!

[Grandad]

That is all SO true LLL

I had just tied the clear recycling sacks and vacuumed the leaves for the 'green lidded bin' for coucil collection tomorrow, and put the glass bottles in a bag for the next trip to the recycling centre at the supermarket. Came indoors, logged on and read your post.....it all seemed so coincidental.

We have a simple system where paper, platics and cans go mixed in clear sacks. Garden waste, grass cuttings, leaves prunings etc go in a large green lidded bin. (Glass has to be taken separately to a recycling point.) This is collected fortnightly and domestic waste is put in grey lidded bin for collection on the intermediate weeks.

This all runs very smoothly and if I visit the local councils recycling unit to dispose of some larger items I am greeted by a large sign saying something like '69% of all waste is recycled by the council. THANK YOU.

What they don't say is that much of that waste is baled up, transported to docks and shipped around the world to places like China where it is sorted, by hand, and reprocessed into lower quality paper pulp, recovered aluminium, or very low grade plastic useful only for things like flower pots and trays that you see plants in at your garden centre.

They may call it recycling but at what cost and is it really viable?

I am not convinced by all the Hype surrounding global warming and the Green issue. There is a strong argument to go back to basics, many of which are described in your post. What's wrong with recycling bottles for refilling? Why do items have to be packed in 3 or 4 layers as Horus' example illustrates? Whats wrong with paper bags, totally degradable? And whatever possesses people to buy bottled water which costs a small fraction of a penny in a plastic, or even glass bottle, that costs thousands of times the value of the contents????

I have joined your rant LLL, better shut up now

[Morgita]

Noooo! I want a rant too. Anyone remember when the ashcan (bin) was so called because you put ashes in it? Anything usable was re-used and the hens were given any waste food like veg peelings. It was all boiled up and mixed with an exotic substance called layer's mash. All other rubbish was burned hence the ashcan. And they dare to say we weren't green. Any greener and we would have been cabbages!

[Horus]

And don't forget Morgita, they used to collect all the leftover school dinners for pig swill Very little was wasted and even those ashes were spread on the path in Winter. As for electric blankets and duvets we had a hot brick wrapped in a towel and could lick the ice off the inside of our bedroom windows! and central heating? that was having one tooth in the middle of your mouth.

We could certainly teach the modern generation a thing or two about being green, cheeky little pups

[LovelyLadyLux]

Far as I can tell we were totally green when I was a kid. NOTHING was wasted at all. We might not have called it recycling but it was using OLD STUFF to do jobs and using the OLD STUFF until we couldn't. I can remember when things started becoming disposable i.e. buying aluminium pie plates instead of using a glass one, paper plates for picnics and paper towels verses and old rag. Nothing much ever seemed to get thrown out if there was a use for it.

Even our pets - we had barn cats. I know we hardly ever fed them, would give them milk after milking but they lived basically on mice they caught. From what I remember our cats lived a good long time, were always healthy. I know this isn't exactly recycling related but way back when we didn't have much but everything we had had a use.

I used 1 knife. Now there are mega styles of knives and one needs huge machines to slice, dice, cut etc. I'm thinking we've become a total consumer society and have so much stuff we can't possibly recycle all of it. We don't need half of what we have but feel neglected if we don't have it! Where did this 'idea' ever come from? I personally think 'we' looked after our world much better than it is being looked after today.

[Grandad]

Give it time LLL and we will all be back there and beyond, the way things are going.

Not wishing to sound prophetic but I am not persuaded by the arguments about global warming. Surely history shows that there have been changes on the earth that have influenced the development of 'life on earth'. What exactly was 'The Ice Age'? and why did dinosaurs disappear?

As an 'advanced civilisation' what does the future hold for us (in the long term)? Why did the ancient Chinese and Egyptian civilisations go into decline?

Good old Albert (Einstein) said 'I do not know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.' So if he is correct, in the distant future we will be back to, if not hunter gathering, at least putting bricks in our beds to keep warm.

[Horus]

I am not that impressed by the global warming camp either Grandad, although I do admit that some sort of changes are taking place. Like you I think they are some sort of cyclic thing that we have little control over, the Earth has gone through many such interludes in the past.

The one thing that always gladdens my heart is to see places like Mount St Helens that were devastated, but less than a generation later it has rejuvenated itself. From utter devastation and bare barren earth, it is now clothed in plant life, young trees flourish and many insect and mammal species have repopulated the area. A salutatory warning that given time this planet can repair any damage we may do to it, but whether we as a species will be here to see it is another matter.

That is not being a doom monger, we have to thank the Stromatolites living in the primordial oceans for belching out their own pollutants into the atmosphere, that particular pollutant gas was Oxygen which killed them off, but was essential in allowing our own early life forms to flourish.

Had the mega volcanic eruptions of the Siberian Traps not occurred we would not have ended the Permian period of earths history that allowed the rise of the Dinosaur age which continued to flourish for hundreds of millions of years. They in turn were to be destroyed by the meteor impact at Chicxulub in the Yucatan Peninsula and the subsequent world wide destruction allowed the mammals to take over the world. So while I agree that we may wreck our own environment, we are incapable of destroying the planet.