Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Makin' Do Tuesday: A History of Trash and a Little More Salt

I really hate to throw things away. Every time I start to put something in the trash can, I think twice. The first question is “Can I possibly do something else with this?” The answer is almost always “yes”. The second question is “Do I have somewhere to store it until I can use it?” Unfortunately, the answer there is often “no”.

I think if I had room to store recyclables, as well as things I could use for compost, we would have very little trash. That got me thinking about how much trash we, as a society, currently produce, and how that compares with societies of the past, as well as those of other cultures.

So I've started a little research on the history of trash. The first thing I learned, is that human beings have a tendency to be wasteful and sloppy. What to do with it is an age-old question that has produced four answers: Pitch it, burn it, reuse it and minimize it.(Source) This same source indicated that waste has a tendency to go hand in hand with affluence. I can see how it would.  Lean times, and times of war lead people to want to make the best use of what they have because they don't know when or if there will be more.

I also learned that I could research this subject for days, and still not read everything. So, its something I'm going to keep working on, and when I finish, I'll let you know what I've learned.

By the way, trash bags, as we know them today, were invented in the 1950's.

A  few weeks ago, I mentioned using salt to clean a cast iron skillet. Well, I finally had another one so dirty that it needed the salt treatment.


Isn't this lovely? Its eggs and sausage (I think) with a little bit of a yogurt smoothie thrown in. This sat about two days last week when we didn't have water. Of course, if I had been thinking, I  could have cleaned this anyway.
I dumped in some salt.
Started working it in with a paper towel.
Gathered up all the crud and dumped it in the trash.
Isn't that pretty? I did rinse the salt out with hot water and dry the pan. I've had this skillet for about 30 years, and its my favorite. So there you have it. A cast iron skillet scrubbed clean with table salt. Awesome huh?

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

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