by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
I am a very strange bird, so people would certainly say, in that I have a serious problem in that I am trying to find a reuse for almost everything. Whether the fact that I have grown up rather poor and in a Romani (Gypsy) family is the main reason for this I could not say but it certainly has contributed greatly to it.
As children we did not have much if anything by the way of bought toys, and other things, and so finding things that we could use, whether for play or in their more or less original use, was always a joy. To a great extent it has remained with me ever since that time, though I don't do much playing with toys anymore but the other part surely remains.
There is a saying that one man's trash is another man's treasure, or something to that effect, and that goes, as far as I am concerned, for any reusable and reworkable items regarded as trash, as much as for lost and not reclaimed things, and few people would believe what people actually toss out – also in parks and open spaces – or leave behind by accident or abandon on purpose, and how few ever inquire as to lost items, and that includes children's scooters, bicycles, rather expensive coats and other items of clothing, etc.
With the way that so many people nowadays behave it is no wonder that we have a problem with waste management for they either “need” to get rid off something they no longer want and just dump it anywhere or they just replace what they lose because they seem to have far too much money and no sense whatsoever. We have become a real throw-away society, and not just in Britain, of that I am sure. The problem is that there is no such place as “away” where things can be thrown. It is also a huge waste of resources.
We need to get back to the mindset of about half a century or more ago when the majority of us would actively look for ways to reuse, repurpose and rework things that might have been regarded by some then and the majority now as trash.
Even producers of foods and other items had packaging made with an immediate reuse built in, so to speak, such as French mustard that came and still comes, at times, in glasses of the kind that are used in every French home, or at least those of the lower classes, for table wine. German mustard often used to come in small beer glasses and there were many other such examples.
However, it does not require, or it should not, instructions of how to reuse something. When I was growing up we rarely, as children, were given “proper” drinking glasses but were handed jam or Frankfurter jars to drink out of. It we dropped and broke them it was not a financial issue. In fact the “real” glasses were kept for visitors; we all drank from jars. In my home it is still that way today. Old habits rarely die.
I doubt that there is anyone who does not remember their grandmother having a biscuit tin full of buttons and others full of other sewing paraphernalia or a grandfather who did not have all manner of nails, screws, nuts and bolts, and whatever else, in glass produce jars in the home of workshop. The backs of envelopes were used for writing down things and for the children to draw upon. Boxes and tins from various sources were reused. Nothing was waste if there was a smallest chance of making use of it.
Time for a reset in this department and also for a rethink not just among the people but in industry and manufacture.
© 2021
