The Green Lady Thing

 

My bogging has been sparse this month because I have had a house guest (my mother in-law) not: “that” kind of Mother-in-law, I actually love my mother-in-law.  However, I have learned something.  Not everyone lives the way I do.  The idea of putting the CRV (cash redemption value) in one barrel and the rest of the paper, plastic and cans in a separate City trash recyclable can is foreign to some people.  I think putting the kitchen scraps in the compost bucket and then dumping it in the garden is an easy thing, but is seams it is not the simple.  I am asked repeatedly “tell me again what barrel this goes in?”  The idea that Dryer lint and Junk mail have a place that is not the trash can just seems in comprehendible!!!!  The Idea that you go out side to pick what is in the garden to decide what is for dinner, what a concept.  I love her and think she is a saint, however, most things I do seem so complicated and squeamish to her.  She was born in 1928 the year before the great depression.   She does not know the hardship of the generation that lived through the depression like my grandmother.  She never knew any different, the older she got the better things got. Her early years of marriage were in the late 1950’s and 1960’s the years of mass consumption with no regrets.  I know she and my Father-in-law lived on a shoestring budget and made many sacrifices for their 4 children, so, I found it odd that I need to teach her these things.  What I have found out is that her idea of living cheap was to buy store brands, clip coupons, cook from scratch and sewing a few items of clothing.  I believe she is just a product of society and the Media telling her what to do.  She grew up with her mom using what we would call “home remedies”, but during the 50’s, 60’s and the 70’s large Corporation told us in their TV commercials how buying their product would make life easier.  Now the new generation of commercials tell us how they have added baking soda, lemon and even peroxide to there products just like grandma used to use.  If there is a way of doing it faster or easier she was told to buy it and she did.  She was raised in Los Angeles, far from the country, and in a very urban setting.  If all of your sources tell you the same thing day after day you learn not to question.  

My mother is only 10 years younger, and grew up in Los Angeles, what a difference, she was taught to question everything.  The big difference may be that my mother’s parents grew up in Nebraska and raised her with their simple mid west values.  Her idea was to use and reuse everything, or figure out how to get more than one use out of everything.  As much as I rag on my mother for her hippie ways, she was a pioneer.   She took that mid west, “make it work” attitude and mixed it with a “living on less attitude”. 

Like I have said before it was never about “saving the planet” it was about getting through it and doing the best you could on what you had.  In my mothers case it became about being “self sufficient”.

 My mother-in-law does have those three bins, one for paper, one for aluminum and one for plastic.  She is good and puts what she thinks she should in each bin. She puts very little in to each one, most goes in to the general trash.  Because she lives in an urban track home she has no “other” use for any of her trash.  She has a garbage disposal and weekly trash service.  If she eats a TV dinner it never occurs to her that the plastic trays are recyclable, or how about the box the TV dinner came in, plastic grocery bags, the yogurt cup and milk jugs.  My mother on the other hand saves her Yogurt cups because she might find another use for them. 

We all need to think harder about our trash, once it is in the land fill it is to late.  Take a second to think about it before you just through it away.

In most cases we have more than we can reuse, so make sure you recycle.

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