Letter: We Have Many Means of Saving Waste
Suzanne Sloan shares practical, waste-free habits from the past and challenges readers to rethink how they reuse, recycle, and reduce plastics.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Since I was born in 1933, you can well imagine me being pre-many things. Plastic food and beverage containers, for instance, those that fill our recycling bins every garbage day. Plastics, in my opinion, are one of the most dangerous and polluting products developed in the last century.
But how could the world get along without them, one may ask? Glass jars, still used but now recycled far more successfully than plastic, are still my preference.
It is the beginning of jam season, and small fruits are ripening fast. They beg preserving and glass bottles from other purchased grocery items have been saved for that purpose. Once sterilized in boiling water, the jars are filled and the jam sealed with a thin layer of paraffin wax, capped and ready for storage. Even that paraffin can be saved once removed from an opened jar, well washed and stored for re-use next year.
Plastic containers such as those used for margarine and yogurt stack and store easily. So why dispose of them after one use? Keep them for freezer storage, for leftovers, for separate portions of soups and stews. A pack of sticky labels is all one needs for identification, and those containers can be filled with anything and everything, to be saved for another day.
Research shows that plastics are less than 40% recyclable, while glass is 100% recyclable. Think of not just the material cost, but also the manufacturing effects on our climate, with 60% of those polymers entering the atmosphere.
Do not buy bottled water in those flimsy, polluting, plastic throw-aways! In many cases, if tested, the water in those bottles comes from the same groundwater source as your tap. Purchase a Brita water filter or under-counter purifier if you question the quality of the water from your town's Water Works or your well.
In my past, there were many ways of recycling. Let me recount a few.
Knitting is a relaxing, enjoyable, and rewarding pastime. Almost every woman knit or crocheted. Pattern books were available for socks, sweaters, hats, you name it. When an item of knitted clothing was worn to fraying, my mother would carefully unravel the garment as I stood in front of her, arms bent at the elbow and thrust out, to become the reel for her unwinding. All damaged threads were removed, and only the good heart of the garment was then wound into balls for knitting a new item.
Old or out-of-style clothing was picked apart. The best of the fabric was saved for quilting, and large pieces were re-cut for new children’s apparel. If you don’t sew or knit, find a seamstress or quilting group who does. They will probably be delighted to accept the fabric.
This business of our unused items being shipped to be dumped off-shore in oceans bordering poorer nations must be stopped!
Pictured here is my floor duster. Note that it is not a Swiffer! It has been in use for over fifty years, thrown in the wash every week along with rags and floor mats. Tangled edges clean around furniture legs with ease. It seems indestructible, and though the original cost is long forgotten, there has been no expense for disposable Swiffer parts, manufactured from polyester, a fossil fuel derivative.
Tissue paper was never taped, then ripped off wrapped gifts. It was tied neatly with reusable satin ribbon or bits of dyed string. The unharmed tissue was then ironed flat with a hand and stored. When needed, the tissue was placed on an ironing board or tabletop and covered by a lightly dampened tea towel, ironed at low temperature, reused and good as new!
I challenge every reader of this rant to sit and count the ways they may recycle from home. For it is not just the article you throw into the recycling bin, it is the cost of pickup and recycling that pollutes the air, the cost of the manufacture of new from old, when old might serve just as well at home, rethought and restored to some new functional purpose.
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.
What a great article, Suzanne. Thanks so much for taking the time to write it.
I was born in 1950 when many of the habits you recount were still in use. I myself still save jars for jam, sterilize them, and reuse. In fact the larger jars now store my various dried beans and pulses. You can see what you have - and when the containers are getting low.
You are absolutely right about plastics. They are filling our oceans and washing up on once pristine beaches in enormous piles. As you say, we have to stop.
Another thing I'll add is a plug for the great "Repair Cafe" now operating all over the world, including right here in Owen Sound. It is open every second Saturday afternoon at the Owen Sound Library. I notice that the men and women (who can repair almost anything) often grew up on farms. Not only did the men learn to repair all machines, but the women learned how to sew and knit. And both genders worked together. As you said, it was just how you got by - and maybe still is if there are any family farms left.
Thanks so much again for a much needed piece of writing for The Current. Maybe the Editor could ask for a challenge to find out more ways readers are creating their own 'sustainable' worlds.
Great letter Suzanne!