Any suggestions for "The Pope Francis Waste Not Club"?

[manualman]

Depending on your area, you can contribute to reuse even if you aren’t handy yourself.

In my area, there are low income fellows that know the trash schedules and patrol the curbline before the trash man comes looking for stuff to salvage, recyclable metals, lumber, etc. If this is the case in your area, then put anything even remotely salvagable prominantly on top of the can and put the cans out the night before. 9 of 10 times for me, the items has been snagged before the trash guy comes. You may think that old boom box with the broken CD player is trash, but some guy who just wants a radio in the garage can still use it.

They love me when I put my worn out brake rotors on top of the can. Those never survive until morning.

 

[RSD]

Depending on your area, you can contribute to reuse even if you aren’t handy yourself.

In my area, there are low income fellows that know the trash schedules and patrol the curbline before the trash man comes looking for stuff to salvage, recyclable metals, lumber, etc. If this is the case in your area, then put anything even remotely salvagable prominantly on top of the can and put the cans out the night before. 9 of 10 times for me, the items has been snagged before the trash guy comes. You may think that old boom box with the broken CD player is trash, but some guy who just wants a radio in the garage can still use it.

They love me when I put my worn out brake rotors on top of the can. Those never survive until morning.

I haved lived in a quite nice neighborhood where bulk trash was put out twice a month and it was normal for everyone who wanted to cruise around looking for reusables. There was no hint that such “recycling” activity was limited to low income guys.

 

[manualman]

I haved lived in a quite nice neighborhood where bulk trash was put out twice a month and it was normal for everyone who wanted to cruise around looking for reusables. There was no hint that such “recycling” activity was limited to low income guys.

That’s cool, but I hope you’re not implying that I’m stereotyping. The patrols in my neighborhood are done by guys in pickups with no exhaust and the bed box is typically from a different truck (different factory color). Many of them have truck beds heaped high with items they can sell to the metal scrapyards. Decidedly not the lady down the street taking the old toaster oven!

 

[RSD]

That’s cool, but I hope you’re not implying that I’m stereotyping. The patrols in my neighborhood are done by guys in pickups with no exhaust and the bed box is typically from a different truck (different factory color). Many of them have truck beds heaped high with items they can sell to the metal scrapyards. Decidedly not the lady down the street taking the old toaster oven!

No, I did not mean to sound like you were stereotyping, just meant to say that many people can play that game!

 

[Edmundus1581]

Several of us made suggestions on this thread, beginning with post 15:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=786888

The generation who lived through the Depression, for those of lucky to have known such people, were automatic role models for this. They reflexively reused items, and didn’t reflexively go out and buy more unless it could not be reused.

I remember that many of these suggestions also appeared under the guise of saving money in this thread…

Small things that make a big difference…

Unfortunately that thread was hijacked by a strange argument that lower consumption, re-use and frugality are anti-Catholic! It would have been good to have Pope Francis to refer to then.

My parents and grand-parents lived through the depression and many of their attitudes to consumption came from that.

 

[DarkLight]

Decide what luxuries ARE ok, and when. Most of us aren’t good at complete asceticism. Start slow. Have a certain “luxuries” budget and stick to it. And be realistic - if you’re going to get home and be too tired to cook every day, figure out a way to have a lot of leftovers.

 

[lynnvinc]

I remember that many of these suggestions also appeared under the guise of saving money in this thread…

Small things that make a big difference…

Unfortunately that thread was hijacked by a strange argument that lower consumption, re-use and frugality are anti-Catholic! It would have been good to have Pope Francis to refer to then.

My parents and grand-parents lived through the depression and many of their attitudes to consumption came from that.

Of course, there is also the financial savings to reducing waste. So when people speak against reducing waste, saying that there are more important issue like helping the poor, I then suggest the savings from reducing one’s waste can be contributed to the poor. Or to any other Catholic issue. Or to pay off one’s debts and help climb out of poverty.

There was a very good episode of Women of Grace on EWTN last year. The guest had thought “thrift” would be a virtue mentioned in the Bible, but she could never find it. Later she came to understand that it is not a virtue at all, though giving to others is.

Another word for “thrift” might be “hording” (which says it all).

It is probably a tempation of all of us who strive to reduce waste to save a good many things we think we might be able to use later – pack-ratting. I plead guilty!! And since I’m married to another pack-rat, we’re up to our ears in junk. This, of course, is better than simply throwing things away to go to some land fill. However, I guess we need to find a balance – giving some things to the poor, recycling others, reusing what we can, and not feeling bad that the thing we need most right now, which we had in our garage or closet for many years, we gave to the poor or recycled last month.

OTOH, there are misinformed Catholics who think anything smacking of environmentalism or anything besides 100% commitment to the anti-abortion campaign is a sin…or at least a distraction from more important issues. To them I usually say that I have never had an abortion and have always been against it (even before becoming a Catholic), sometimes joining in various parish and other activities against it, but I AM guilty of harms thru my wastefulness and personal contributions to pollution, so for me at least I would like to strive to reduce these. (I also have much more serious sins, such as lack of charity and outright meanness, esp to my closest loved ones, which I also need to continually work on, but that doesn’t stop me from striving to reduce my less serious imperfections or from doing good to others.)

Also, some environmental harms actually cause miscarriages and birth defects, so reducing these would help reduce risk of these harms. And it behooves us, esp pregnant women, to understand these types of issues, so as to avoid or reduce the risk of such harms.

I don’t know why some Catholics disregard the environment so much. It’s true the environment is “not God”; however, it IS God’s creation, which He pronounced good.

Also trapped in the false notion of nature as something well apart from our human condition – beyond the fringes of civilization, the wild (read “useless”) species in wilderness (useless) places – some are unable to grasp that the environment is also the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat, chemicals that permeate thru our skin, the resources with which we build our buildings and make our products, and the climate in which grow our crops.

I love Pope Francis, who perhaps because he is a scientist, understands the environment and environmental issues better than most people, and how we are highly interconnected and dependent on it. In his first message as pope he revealed this profound understanding:

Please I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill, let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.

To protect creation, to protect every man and woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love is to open up a horizon of hope; otherwise the way is open to destruction and hearts are hardened. Let us not allow the omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world.

I couldn’t believe my ears. I was moved to tears. Habemus Papam!

 

[lynnvinc]

To stay on-topic, here is another thing I do – get USED PAPER with one clean side from the university library, and I use only that, unless I need to do something double-sided or write some clean letter. Years ago there was lots of such paper, which included sheet separators. Now I’m happy to see the library has eliminated sheeet-separators and students are using the double-sided option more and more. It makes it more difficult for me to sift thru the paper recycling bins, but I still find much more than enough paper for my use, just in the 15 minutes I’m there once in 2 weeks. I feel bad that all the other times the paper is just going for recycling, since REUSE is a higher principle than RECYCLE.

Also PRECYCLE is a good concept – buying things with less packaging (which someone already mentioned here).

 

[Country_Gal]

Research the resource cost of different foods, and figure out what your body really needs. Meat has a higher cost than most non-meats, and processed foods have more cost than unprocessed. Most westerners eat more protein than they need in their diet. Things like replacing a meal of hamburgers with pasta with a beef stroganoff (where you get a little meat and more pasta) can help reduce waste.

Good point.

 

[LegoGE1947]

No, I did not mean to sound like you were stereotyping, just meant to say that many people can play that game!

We have lots of guys that come around on trash day with old trucks looking for stuff to sell to scrap yards. We also have people who walk the streets looking for empty beverage cans to sell for scrap. There are lots of bars not far from us and especially on Sunday mornings you see guys with garbage bags and “Gophers” picking up beverage cans out of the gutters. (In case you are not familiar with a Gopher it is a tool that is about 3 feet in length with a clam-shell type affair on one end with suction cups and on the other end is a handle with a trigger. You grab onto an object to pick it up or you can use it to reach objects that are just out of reach. You may have seen Infomercials about them.

 

[lynnvinc]

We have lots of guys that come around on trash day with old trucks looking for stuff to sell to scrap yards. We also have people who walk the streets looking for empty beverage cans to sell for scrap. There are lots of bars not far from us and especially on Sunday mornings you see guys with garbage bags and “Gofers” picking up beverage cans out of the gutters.

We’ve noticed that people take things set out near an apt dumpster, so we’ve put things out, but are careful to pick up whatever remains just before garbage day…since the garbage guys won’t pick it up, and might give a fine to the apt-dwellers, esp if it is left out for several weeks.

There is also a person we know who told us about a metal man who comes and collects things near her apt, so we give her all the metal things for recycling.

I really have been a bit remiss in finding all the places to give for reuse and recycling. We have a recycling center, so we take things there. They just started curb-side, but you have to pay a fee and go thru a training class.

Up north in Aurora, IL, they started a recycling center and a bit later curbside in the early 90s. What they did was start charging $2 stickers for garbage pick up (taking $5 off the water bill – from the garbage collection portion of it – so it was pretty much revenue neutral), then they used that sticker money for their curside recycling program and gave everyone blue bins to put their recyclables in.

That worked fine. I remember going to the city hall meetings when they were discussing and voting on it. Someone raised the issue that with the $2 garbage fee people might dump illegally. I then testified that it would pose no problem, since there would most likely be junk mail with the names and addresses of the culprits in the trash…since we had had a neighbor in the deep south in the early 70s who had dumped their trash in our yard, and we found out who they were from the mail in their trash and dumped it back in their yard – a painful case of racism.

As it turned out there were several cases of illegal dumping, but as I had foretold, they were able to trace it back to the culprits…

 

[LegoGE1947]

We’ve noticed that people take things set out near an apt dumpster, so we’ve put things out, but are careful to pick up whatever remains just before garbage day…since the garbage guys won’t pick it up, and might give a fine to the apt-dwellers, esp if it is left out for several weeks.

There is also a person we know who told us about a metal man who comes and collects things near her apt, so we give her all the metal things for recycling.

I really have been a bit remiss in finding all the places to give for reuse and recycling. We have a recycling center, so we take things there. They just started curb-side, but you have to pay a fee and go thru a training class.

Up north in Aurora, IL, they started a recycling center and a bit later curbside in the early 90s. What they did was start charging $2 stickers for garbage pick up (taking $5 off the water bill – from the garbage collection portion of it – so it was pretty much revenue neutral), then they used that sticker money for their curside recycling program and gave everyone blue bins to put their recyclables in.

That worked fine. I remember going to the city hall meetings when they were discussing and voting on it. Someone raised the issue that with the $2 garbage fee people might dump illegally. I then testified that it would pose no problem, since there would most likely be junk mail with the names and addresses of the culprits in the trash…since we had had a neighbor in the deep south in the early 70s who had dumped their trash in our yard, and we found out who they were from the mail in their trash and dumped it back in their yard – a painful case of racism.

As it turned out there were several cases of illegal dumping, but as I had foretold, they were able to trace it back to the culprits…

We often see people putting out old electronics to the garbage but it is illegal to do so in Illinois. There have been places set up where you can legally dispose of those such as Best Buy stores and other places like that. But lots of time when people put those things out, the scavengers will take them to sell for scrap.

 

[Pug]

It is kind of hard to believe the work invested in recycling is useful to anyone in some locations. (Note in advance: I’ve been recycling since the seventies, and I still do).

Take my work. We have a trash can and a recycling can in many rooms, but *every *single day there is regular garbage in the recycling can, and lots of it. Or take at home. My recycling is mixed with my neighbor’s as they collect it. Say my neighbor just dumps whatever in there, no rinsing, wrong type of plastic, soiled paper, some garbage, etc.

I used to feel my work accomplished something, but now I wonder. Reusing doesn’t suffer from this problem, though.

 

[Bonnie]

I used to feel my work accomplished something, but now I wonder. Reusing doesn’t suffer from this problem, though.

Don’t give up! Remember the sparrow’s comment, “One does what one can.” It is upsetting when others dilute our efforts, but there isn’t much one can do about it. Just keep doing what you can.

 

[Country_Gal]

Healthy, simple eating, conserves ones health, therefore the resources of the larger society. The healthcare system of today is extremely wasteful of resources. Good stewardship of your body is good stewardship of the earth.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is a REALLY small thing, but I got tired of spending money on aerosol shaving cream (it really adds up after awhile). My wife likes some kind of soap for bathing that has glycerine in it. So, I am the “soap replacer” in the shower. When the bar gets down to one of those little slivers that are almost useless anyway, I replace it with a new bar and put the sliver in my shaving cup. If one has a decent brush, it works just as well as aerosol shaving cream.

 

[CradleJourney]

Depending on your area, you can contribute to reuse even if you aren’t handy yourself.

In my area, there are low income fellows that know the trash schedules and patrol the curbline before the trash man comes looking for stuff to salvage, recyclable metals, lumber, etc. If this is the case in your area, then put anything even remotely salvagable prominantly on top of the can and put the cans out the night before. 9 of 10 times for me, the items has been snagged before the trash guy comes. You may think that old boom box with the broken CD player is trash, but some guy who just wants a radio in the garage can still use it.

They love me when I put my worn out brake rotors on top of the can. Those never survive until morning.

Or the kid trying to build his own robot (got one of those kids myself - all kinds of guides to using radios, VCR’s, old computer mice, etc. for parts)

 

[Bonnie]

“Magic” creams & potions that are supposed to give you soft skin & make you look younger are very expensive. I use olive oil for cooking, so some years ago I started to use olive oil & plain white sugar as a facial scrub. It tamed my dry skin problems & makes my skin nice and soft. I use warm water to wash it off - no soap.

It doesn’t take much oil or sugar & is much cheaper than the chemical stuff sold in stores. I also use it on my elbows & feet before showering. Be careful about the oil on the feet - you don’t want to slip in the shower!

 

[CradleJourney]

Most of you are much higher on the conservation scale than I am Severe constraints on me for time/money/space but I’ll get there.

Currently my suggestion is to look at your habitual things.

The truth is that it’s a habit to turn the light on when I walk into a room or closet - even though I can find what I need without it.

It’s a habit to get out fresh aluminum foil to wrap the leftovers rather than just use the piece they were just cooked on.

It’s a habit to throw everything into the dirty clothes hamper when we take it off - whether it’s really dirty or not.

 

[LegoGE1947]

Don’t give up! Remember the sparrow’s comment, “One does what one can.” It is upsetting when others dilute our efforts, but there isn’t much one can do about it. Just keep doing what you can.

Do what you can and can what you do!