I am talking about opening gifts carefully so we can use the wrapper again, saving ice cream containers for a multitude of uses, piling egg cartons up until they are so high they tip over, and washing out jars with lids and putting them in storage for *cough* 'when' we make jam...
Remember laughing about how grandma's were so thrifty they would save the sticky tape on gift wrapping and other super strange things? My husbands grandmother doesn't flush her toilet.. and tells you off when you do it (TWICE ha ha) & she catches all her water in ice cream containers and waters her garden with it. Yes she is crazy & seriously I don't like her & not for her extreme recycling ways.
Needless to say these habits were ingrounded into me so well that I have been doing them for years on my own accord. In fact I have (in the past) felt GUILTY for throwing away a perfectly good glass jar with lid just because I felt too LAZY to wash it and put it in the recycle bin. Actually to just put it straight into the rubbish bin. I had this dilema of having too many 'use one day' items clogging up my home.
Being the *ahem* wonderful homeschooling mum that I am... asking other more talented homeschooling parents what they do for "social studies" one day ended up in me reading about doing 'recycling' as part of social studies. There are lots of 'activities' that can be done. For example colouring in the 'recycle triangle', watching you tube videos of what happens to the recycling and what they make out of the materials, taking an excursion to your local recycling plant and actually putting recyclable products into the recycling bin.
For me: I googled. What is recyclable and what is not (Cos I honestly couldn't remember!). I was surprised to learn that recyclable items have this triangle on them...
Plastic ones look a bit like this one (although the number can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 in our area):
I was also surprised that yoghurt containers, milk cartons, tin cans, ice cream containers AND their lids, egg cartons and GLASS JARS were ALL RECYCLABLE (in our area). The site asks that they be washed out before being put into the recycle bin.
I was excited. I showed the kids the triangles and told them they go into the recycle bin. Then I would ask them if an item went into the bin or the recycle bin. They were more excited than I was and learnt quickly.
For me it meant I was able to declutter the multitude of ice cream containers, glass jars, yoghurt containers, egg cartons, re-usable containers that filled my already overcrowded and tiny cupboards and spare room. I managed to fill the bin up in a day. And had to wait another 12 days before it got emptied. During which time I had stored up recycling in boxes and bins. When that was emptied it took less than 5 minutes to fill the recycle bin. And so on and so on. It is filled in around a week.
It feels good to recycle, better knowing it isn't just getting dumped as land fill (a reason to use cloth nappies actually). Our rubbish bin is now only half-filled to 2/3rds full on pick up day. Good hey! It USED to be overflowing. My cupboards have more space and I can move better in my spare room.
If your my local reader check this out: http://recyclingnearyou.com.au/kerbside/EsperanceWA
I don't believe in the 'global warning crisis' and all those 'environmental concerns' but I do believe that we could look after the earth that God created with his voice a lot better than we do.
If you are interested in recycling I encourage you to check out what you can and can not recycle in your area and see if you are creating more work for the workers by putting in items that should not be present.
5 Things I am Thankful for:
1. Freedom I feel, less stuff in the house (freedom from my OLD way of recycling to my NEW way of recycling)
2. Knowing that putting recycleable materials into the recycle bin is used better than it would be if it was stored in my home
3. Teaching children in a NATURAL environment
4. Learning about recycling myself and seeing what can be done with things
5.My children - because I love them, lots.
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