Make use of your dregs

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

olive oill dregs1_webWhen you have finished with a bottle of olive oil, or washing-up liquid, or liquid laundry detergent, do you just toss it out? Most people do, I know. But I suggest that you don't. You are throwing product away still.

Drain out the remains, the dregs that are left in the bottle, for there is always something left, small as those remains may be, into a container such as a (small) glass jar.

While this may not, initially, amount to much over time there will be quite an accumulation.

As far as cooking oil or salad oil, whether olive oil or other, reclaimed in this way, is concerned I would not, necessarily, use or recommend its use for culinary purposes, as the oil may become contaminated. However, this reclaimed oil has so many other uses besides and thus recovery is a good idea.

Plant oil recovered from empties in this way can be put to many uses in the home and elsewhere.

Use it to revive tired wood such as furniture, wooden utensils, tool handles, walking sticks, etc. you can also use it for chapped hands, and such, and even as chain oil for chainsaws and bicycles.

I make use of such recovered oil in all those ways and as oil for preserving and protecting, so to speak, the wooden products that I make, be those spoons or spatulas, walking sticks, cudgels, swagger sticks, or what-have-you.

Dregs from washing-up liquid and liquid laundry detergent, on the other hand, can be used for their original purposes without any problems or qualms.

I also tend to retain the “juice” from pickles, such as dill pickles, pickled onions and such as it, predominately, is but vinegar and use this vinegar for cleaning purposes. I have also used it before, then however kept refrigerated, to make pickled eggs without any problems.

Waste not want not and make use of dregs too.

© 2013