Welcome to Pam from Kirkoswald who's going to blog about Freegle, recycling, repair and that sort of thing.
I don’t know about you and yours but in our house, when it comes to recycling, while we’re all agreed it’s a good thing, we don’t all tackle it in quite the same way. This can lead to some interesting situations…
Person 1 - Insists on wearing clothes until they fall apart and even then, they are not deemed ready for the dustbin, being repurposed into all kinds of useful things – past their best underpants masquerade as polishing cloths in the shoe cleaning box, old socks stuffed with onions hang from a hook in the cellar. Nothing wrong with that you may think but when it comes to up/down cycled items for wear it’s another matter. Trousers, cut off at the knee to become shorts are all very well in summer but a bit much in winter as I had occasion to observe at the beginning of this year to a chapped and shivering pair of knees. As for jumpers turned into short sleeved ‘winter t-shirts’… I have no sympathy. Patched suits at weddings and other important functions are perhaps the jewel in the crown though as invariably a degree of exclusion transpires in the photography session.
Person 2 – has a terrible thing about paper. Nothing makes them more cross than seeing a fresh piece of cartridge paper used for a nonsense note.
But if you must write such trivia then this is surely what the insides of used envelopes are for, or the backs of letters and missives from unthinking third parties that only print one sided.
Example note:
1) Get up
2) Make porridge
3) Walk dogs
4) Have snooze
I kid you not.
Person 3 – is a whole other ball game and sometimes confounds person 1 and person 2 as their ascetic tendencies go far beyond any pail they wish to carry. If you can’t acquire it second hand do without is their absolute mantra - difficult when it comes to false teeth - and whilst this obviously doesn’t include food, they do extend to no crisps, no mayonnaise, no anything that has been tarnished by plastic in the shape of lids, packaging, transport. It isn’t that person 1 or 2 disagrees in theory it’s just that, well, you know, it’s hard sometimes isn’t it? Ohm…
Sadly, as yet, I have no definitive answers to these conundrums. Although we are trying to do better. I for instance am writing this on my, new to me, re-furbished laptop, our ascetic is eating crisps courtesy of Two Farmers - the first company in the UK to introduce plastic free crisp packaging. And I’ve just been given a note, written on the back of a cereal package, to tell me coffee is being served in the garden shed, cum summer house, where, if I manage to make my way through the hordes of stuff that might one day come in useful, a seat may be found.
Pam.P.
Useful Site: Edinburgh Remakery an Edinburgh based charity, as well as selling refurbished technology is now offering online workshops teaching a range of skills all with roots in sustainability and reuse.
