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Waste not...

November 3rd, 2013 at 09:05 pm

Watching certain shows just appall me at times.

I'm a sucker for those home improvement shows, especially when they are redoing the kitchen. Yet, people love to tear up cabinets, sinks, countertops, etc. Now, granted some of the cabinets are pretty bad, but many are just considered "out of date". I'm not saying they should keep them in the kitchen, but why not remove them and recycle them? Years ago when we bought new cabinets, the neighbor asked if they could have them for the garage. Our contractor was thrilled because he didn't have to figure out a way to dispose of them...so he left them in the driveway and the neighbors came and got them. When they have their garage door open, I get to "visit" my cabinets.

There's a new show on the Food Network with Robert Irvine about restaurant redos and they take a charter bus and run over tables, chairs, and such for the ad. Why are we such a destructive society?

I was contemplating the things I try not to throw out. A local food pantry asks for egg cartons because they get eggs in bulk and can then divide them up by the dozen so we save our egg cartons to donate.

A gal I know runs a small restaurant since they cannot sell food that was made that day at another day, they are always looking for plastic lidded containers. I save our cottage cheese, sour cream, and other plastic lidded containers for them. They take the leftovers home and don't have a lot of money invested in the containers. They also have chicken broth they give away from the chickens they cook for chicken salad so they use these plastic containers for the giveaways. She in turn saves the box tops and bread labels that our school saves.

Whenever we have clothes that are so stained we no longer wear or would donate, I cut off the buttons. I've been doing this for years and kept them in a fruit jar. I sold the jar of buttons at our booth for $4 last month. I keep one for us for odd buttons too so if we lose a button we hopefully won't have to purchase a new one.

On some of the cooking shows, they mix something up and have quite a bit left in the mixing bowl and just throw it out. How wasteful. My DH's aunt who grew up in the Depression couldn't get over this wastefulness.

Unfortunately society in general has become fairly wasteful. So much of everything is disposable. My brother said they just bought a new appliance and were talking about how appliances don't last. My mil had a chest freezer that was over 30 years old and still working...it was disposed of because the bottom rusted out since it was in the garage and ... well, the moisture rusted it out. But, imagine, an appliance lasting 30 years? I realize it was an energy hog, but still...30 years??????

A few years ago I happened upon some overripe bananas and I pulled some kids from a class and asked if they wanted to bake with me. They were grossed out about the bananas...I told them they were far sweeter than ripe ones. We made the bread, talked about using up what we have, and when it was baked, they certainly enjoyed it.

I'm sure there are many ways to not waste things...what are some things that come to mind?

9 Responses to “Waste not...”

  1. PNWMom Says:
    1383516706

    I have to say....those cooking shows where the chefs don't scrape the bowl drives me crazy!

  2. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1383516967

    Speaking of ripe bananas ... on the emeals blog there is a divine recipe for peanut butter/chocolate banana bread. It looks like it could make for a really nice gift bread (if you can figure out how to make the swirls swirl.)

  3. snafu Says:
    1383524233

    Gran was a product of the depression. We still save heels of bread for bread crumbs of flavored croutons. Leftovers and bits from carrot ends, onion are collected in a zip bag for soup stock. Now that we have 8" pf snow, we'll have home made soup at least 3 times each week. Coming home to the fragrant scent of soup in the crock pot helps us forget the terror of the drive home with the stupids driving their pick-up trucks at breakneck speed on icy roads.

  4. rob62521 Says:
    1383525219

    Snafu...be careful driving on the snow...your soup sounds yummy.

    FrugalTexan...I will have to check it out...thanks!

    I so agree PNWMom!

  5. marvholly Says:
    1383557800

    My bread heels also become the 'crouton' on top of
    French onion soup.

  6. CB in the City Says:
    1383574425

    This weekend my 7-year-old grandson told me, "It's okay to waste food if you don't like it!" I'm pretty sure that's not his mom's opinion, though.

  7. LuckyRobin Says:
    1383624623

    I do try to use up all of my leftovers and not waste things to begin with, but if I get a little something that is starting to smell off but has no visible mold, I can at least feed it to the chickens. They'll eat anything and the only thing I won't give them is chicken. Same with any scraps I don't save for soup, they'll eat potato peels or the part of broccoli that you cut off, and the rabbits will eat most veggie peels. It is nice to have a back up for if I do get behind on things. Even before that I wouldn't throw food in the trash, I'd compost it.

  8. baselle Says:
    1384379012

    How did I miss this? The construction company for my kitchen reno recycled a good 85% of my crap. All the cabinets got recycled and the program coordinator himself took my old stove. Told me it made prime rib like a champ. I also recycled my old fridge for $50.

  9. rob62521 Says:
    1384388753

    All good ideas on using and reusing! Thanks!

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