Growing up on a ranch & farm, we always recycled. But never put a tub or container out on a curb for some air polluting diesel truck to come by & pick up. When it takes that much carbon usage to collect the recycled items, is it really good for the earth? Or is it just good for the conscience of those wanting to have the illusion that they are making a difference?

I grew up with recycling taking on a more personal endeavor. One that meant the entire family had to use their brain and figure out how to reclaim objects.

We learned to save the glass jars, old coffee cans & other potential "containers". Even old cereal boxes were reused and made into magazine sleeves to organize magazines in our family library. We took old rectangular linseed oil cans and cut them open on one corner & side & bent back the sharp edge, so as to make organizational tubs for my father's farm shop. Allowing us the means to organize nails & bolts & other miscellaneous small items into bins.

Old tires were used to help stabilize shifting sand in the blown areas of the sand hills, helping to restore the grass and reduce erosion. Other reclaimed tires spent their life as barriers around small trees planted in windrows or as heat sinks at the base of tomatoes in the garden.

Rail road ties became fence posts for bull pastures & corrals. Few things made it to the dump. Metal was put into the scrap pile next to the shop, to be recycled right on the ranch. Glass jars found new uses both in the home or on the farm. Old nails were pulled from boards, straightened and sorted by size & reused. Even old pad locks & pad locks keys were saved & placed in specified cans, so that later we could work to match them together (ie key to lock) and then they could be reused.

I remember well my grandfather having a small trailer next to his burn barrel, where he tossed the tin cans which were one of the few things that he didn't immediately have use for. Even some of them were retrieved when a small metal can was needed for some purpose.

Plastic milk jugs were saved & strung on reclaimed baling twine & hung in the out building for future use in the garden as "tents" for garden transplants that would need protection from frost.

Newspapers were used as compost around the base of garden plants and did double duty as weed barriers.
Some were rolled tightly into "logs" and used in fire places.

Old glass vinegar jugs were reclaimed and covered in old quilting and burlap, making them into insulated thermos jugs that could be used to carry water.

Even old kitchen knives and spoons often found new life, as garden utensils when they were no longer wanted in the kitchen.

It was a far cry from the piles at the curb. Recycling took innovation and ingenuity. We didn't go out and buy new items all the time, but figured out how we could reclaim something we already had & needed to discard. It was a system that encouraged saving and discouraged throwing things away. A far cry different from today's system in our "throw away society".

If we want to reclaim objects, one of the best places to "shop" is right in our own recycling bins. Lets reduce & reuse at home, before getting into our gas guzzling car to go to a shop to buy used items. Lets reduce and reuse at home the items we are tossing into bins for a large truck to pick up.