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Going Green: Before it was cool

Since today is Earth Day I decided I would dedicate this blog to the person that taught me the most about recycling, reusing and re-purposing, my mother. The reason my mom had a black belt in recycling, reusing and re-purposing was not because she lived through the depression nor was it because she is a tree-hugging ex-hippie; she was simply trying to support a family of 6 on a teachers salary. In the past she had been accused of being cheap but I would like to suggest that in reality she was just going green before it was cool.

Here are a few tips you can use straight from my mother’s book of recycling, reusing, and repurposing.

Wax paper from your cereal box: Once you finish the cereal from the wax paper bag it was contained in then you can re-purpose the wax paper for cooking or other uses. Simply pull the bag apart until its flat and you have a perfectly good piece of wax paper.

Welfare Gore-Tex: My parents couldn’t afford to buy special winter gear for us so if we didn’t get it second-hand then we would have to make do. This is where the “Welfare Gore-Tex” (nickname my brothers gave it) came into play. My mother would save bread sacks and we would layer socks and bread sacks to form a warm water-proof barrier for our feet and legs. Our Welfare Gore-Tex would enable us to play for hours in the snow.

Butter/Margarine wrappers: Once you have unwrapped your sticks of butter or margarine fold the wrappers and keep them in your refrigerator. These wrappers have little bits of butter/margarine stuck to them so the wrappers are great for greasing cookie sheets or frying pans.

Toilet paper CAN be recycled: Growing up my brother’s and I were in sports so usually during Homecoming our house would be toilet-papered. Most people would look at this as a big mess to clean up. My mother saw this as free toilet paper. We would have to gather up all the bits of paper off the trees and bushes and then this would be our every day toilet paper for the bathroom. There would be little bits of twig on some of the paper so you would take caution in wiping.

Expiration dates are just a suggestion: My mom never believed in expiration dates. If the food looked ok, smelled ok, then it was ok for consuming. *To her credit none of us went to the hospital for food poisoning.

All grease/oil is reusable: My mom kept a container on the stove for storing any sort of excess grease or oil from cooking. This was especially useful when cooking bacon since there is always lots of excess grease. This bucket-o-grease was then handy for the next time you needed some sort of cooking lubricant. Besides being VERY bad for you the only down side to this was that everything my mom cooked had a slight bacon taste to it.

Tin foil, plastic wrap, and plastic bags are all washable: I think this one is self explanatory.

Recycling dinner: My mother was a firm believer in leftover’s. If one night we had bean soup, the next night we would have bean soup tacos and then perhaps the next night we would have some sort of bean soup taco dip.

Plastic ware: This includes plastic forks, knives, spoons, plates and cups. If you have the luxury of buying plastic ware you can get months use out of them by simply washing and reusing.

You can freeze everything: If my mom found something on sale at the grocery store she would buy several months supply. This would include food items that wouldn’t normally keep several months like bread, cheese, meat, etc. All of this food would be placed in our large freezer for use at a later date.

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