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LEARN HOW TO MAKE OUR TYPE LARGER

	Just a thought
	Betty Lammers

What goes around comes around
Published April 2000

Recycling is not a new concept. Ask anyone who is a product of the Depression. We have been doing it for years. It is an impossible habit to break. We use a piece of aluminum foil until it cannot be smoothed out to be of any additional service.

Has anyone else, as a child, brought their peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school for lunch and returned with a piece of waxed paper and a lunch bag in good condition for day #2? During the WWII years, even the smallest piece of chewing gum wrapper containing aluminum was pressed into an ever-present ball in most homes. I’m not sure what anybody did with these metal balls “for the war effort.” I just know that every family had one.

I remember string-savers. People wrapped various sizes of string into balls, I never understood the purpose of this. I just know it was done.

Appliances were repaired instead of being replaced. Diapers were washed and dried and pinned on again. I knew a few expectant mothers in the ‘80s who decided to help the environment and searched intently for cloth diapers, found them and used them for the first week. Then the lack of sleep from nightly feedings took over and they succumbed to the convenience of disposables. I, too, have succumbed to convenience over the years. I make sure there are enough paper plates and cups for birthday get-togethers and barbecues and get a new appliance when the old one falters. I separate the cans and plastic and put them to the curb every other week, but I still smooth out the aluminum foil for another day.

E-mail Betty Lammers at betty@homefrontmagazine.com.

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