by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
No, we are not going to reuse children...
Give a child a cardboard box or other piece of packaging waste and he going to turn it into something almost without doubt. Children seem to recognize reuse in things where many grownups can only think of the recycling bin.
It has to be said that our grandparents and their parents definitely had the reuse knack – though not the childish toy one though man a toy for a child was made in such a way – to find a reuse for almost everything.
Kids are also good with the likes of empty tin cans and other things as far as reuse goes, while many adults today cannot, it would appear, think beyond the recycling bin and think outside the box.
Your recycling bin is not going to die of starvation if you don't feed it regularly, even on a more or less permanent basis.
The glass jar that you so often thoughtlessly toss into the recycling bin you did actually pay for – and that is the way our ancestors saw it – when you bought the product previously contained therein, so why not reuse it. It's your, you paid for it. The same goes for that empty tin can, the sweets tin, the sturdy cardboard box, etc.
Why go and buy a storage box for papers, a pencil bin for the desk or a storage jar for the kitchen when items of packaging waste can be reused and repurposed for the task. The sturdy cardboard box becomes the paper store, the tin can the pencil bin and the glass jar from the gherkins becomes a storage jar for sugar, salt, tea, or whatever, and the empty Snapple® bottle becomes your reusable water bottle. Simple, isn't it?
Think before you toss anything out, even it it is into the recycling bin.
© 2014
