My parents aren’t wasteful people, they find a way to reuse
almost anything. Here’s a few things my
parents have been reusing, recycling, and upcycling before they were on
Pinterest.
Reusing glass jars
 |
| Reusing glass jars in a woodshop or garage |
My dad had a woodshop in the shed in our backyard. Now
thinking back on it, I wonder how much wood work he did, perhaps it was just to
get away from me and my brother, but that’s another story.
On the underside of a long shelf, he had nailed the lids of
jars, and in the jars were all kinds of nails and tacks and whatever stuff you
need to build things with wood. These
were recycled jars – maybe pickles or peanut butter; they definitely were not
purchased for this purpose. As a kid, I
thought it was a pretty cool idea and was for some reason, fascinated with
unscrewing the jars to see what was in them, although I could see (they were glass, after all) and there was nothing ever
more exciting than washers and nuts and bolts and nails.
Repurposing envelopes
Tucked in with the bills and charity donation requests is a
blank envelope. If for some reason my father was not using that envelope, he
set it aside to use at another time.
It’s a habit I still do. My kids’
lunch money, field trip money, note to a teacher, is just as likely to be in a
charity envelope or credit card return envelope. Because everyone pays everything on line
these days, these envelopes are less available, but they still come in various
mailings.
Repurposing cookie
tins
Remember those little butter cookies that came in the blue
metal tins? Do they make them
anymore? My mother used to get them for
us and after we had eaten all the cookies from their little cupcake-paper
holders, there was the empty tin. She
reused those tins around the house as various containers. One became a sewing tin to hold her thread
and needles. One held her playing cards,
these little red plastic Korean cards for a game that I never got the hang of,
but always looked so fun. They held hair
ties and accessories. Whatever little
things we had, she gathered them in these little cookie tins.
Reusing plastic
containers & glass jars
If you go into my mother’s refrigerator and take out the tub
of butter, do not be surprised if there’s no butter in it. It could be soup,
spaghetti sauce, or half an onion. To be truthful, the same could be said for
my fridge, too. My mother has always
reused the plastic containers from foods such as butter and tofu, as well as
glass food jars for storing leftovers, food bought in bulk, or kimchi that
she’s made herself (kimchi is a
Korean fermented vegetable dish that is made in large quantities and then is
stored.) I’ve taken it a step further by
painting the lids of the glass jars to make them cuter on the pantry shelf.
Using a kitchen garbage
bowl
 |
| The modern, fancy garbage bowl. Who knew mom could've been rich? |
When my mother cooked, she always had some sort of catch-all
on the counter for the ends of an onion, the skin of the garlic, and other
throwaway pieces. This was usually in the form of the Styrofoam tray from the
chicken or the plastic container that she had emptied of it's tofu. She never used that pretty ceramic mixing
bowl in the cabinet that she used for, well, for mixing. Who knew had she used that bowl instead and marketed it as a “stylish
garbage bowl” like Rachel Ray, she could have funded her retirement on throwing
away cooking garbage.
Isn’t it interesting when you come across a “brand new idea”
and realize that your parents or grandparents have been doing that for years? Where our parents did it for pure
functionality, we update it with some spray paint or some ribbons and give it a name and think we're doing something brand new, but it’s
still the same function. More proof that “there’s nothing new under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:9)
No comments:
Post a Comment