Cheapskate image makeover: Call us 'eco-friendly'
Posted
Sep 15 2008, 12:05 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
A Smart Spending message board reader posting as "jestjack" rescued more than 600 sheets of printouts that would otherwise have been thrown away. He's happily using their blank sides in his own printer. "Good for the planet, good for my pocketbook," jestjack wrote. "Has anyone else had such an experience?"
Have we ever. As regular readers of this blog know, people find the darnedest ways to reuse teabags, worn-out socks, banana peels, aluminum foil, razor blades or even -- ick -- toilet paper.
Although some of these ideas are a bit extreme, a lot of them make sense because I was raised to reuse. We took the laces out of worn shoes to use as spares or for tying things in bundles. Homemade jam was stored in old pickle or peanut butter jars with a plug of paraffin on top.
Shopping lists were written on envelopes. Our barn held stacks of scrap lumber that came in handy sooner or later. Most of my clothes had been worn by my sisters and sometimes by my cousins -- as long as there was "some wear left in it," it stayed in circulation.
Thinking outside the (litter) box
Jestjack's message board thread elicited responses from readers who reuse envelopes, grocery bags, cloth diapers, calendar pages, plastic deli-meat tubs, paper towels and their kids' leftover school supplies.
"Skammons" turned about-to-be-discarded folders into greeting cards.
Reader "momofone" tore used pages out of her daughter's spiral notebooks and will use what's left for lists and notes.
"TheBlackDrop" has yet to toss the waste receptacle from her cat's self-cleaning litter box. Instead, she lines it with grocery bags and throws them away.
Like jestjack, several readers repurpose discarded printouts. Reader "Great Arm" takes it to a new level by gluing them to cardboard to create bound notepads. "Yep, I'm a total nerd," the reader admits.
But an ecologically aware nerd: "I haven't used an actual pad of paper from the office supply room in over 10 years."
Use it up, wear it out
I was reminded of the thread this weekend while I puttered around the kitchen. Sheets of newspapers soaked up syrupy drips as I canned the last of my gleaned fruit. (Not the Sunday comics, though -- I save those to wrap birthday presents.)
Some freshly made jam went into an old margarine container; It's a new recipe that I want my sister to taste. A few surplus cooked plums went into the fridge in an old pickle jar. Once the plums have been eaten, I'll turn the tangy leftover syrup into a marinade.
To make chili, I pulled two small wax-paper bags full of cooked ground beef from the freezer; previously, the bags had held dried fruit. Among the chili seasonings was kosher salt from my new salt shaker: an allspice bottle I'd emptied while making apple butter last week.
I wiped up drips with a dishcloth, not a paper towel. The roll of paper towels in my kitchen has been there since Aug. 1, 2007. I wrote the date on the inside of the tube, just to see how long it would last. Eight sheets are left.
Make it do, or do without
The aluminum foil is on track to last more than a year, too. I opened an 8.33-yard roll on Jan. 19 and a little over 5 yards remain. That's because I wash and reuse the stuff, and also because I pack lunch sandwiches and store leftovers in containers. Those containers are likely to be jars or margarine tubs.
I keep odd nails, screws and other hardware in an old cream-cheese container. My cleaning rags aren't disposables bought at the store, but squares cut from worn-out clothing. They get laundered rather than thrown away.
Saltine wrappers are useful for covering the glass measuring cup of bacon fat in my fridge, or for wrapping ground beef in small portions. Those portions are frozen in the bags from inside cereal or cracker boxes.
Some people would call these reuses frugal. Others would sneer at them as just plain cheap. But as jestjack noted, such behavior can also be considered eco-friendly: "Saving something that was destined to be trashed (and) finding a use for it."
I like the idea of helping save the planet, but saving money is important to me as well. Some people think that's ludicrous -- that it's just a few cents here and there. But cents add up to dollars, and every dollar we don't have to spend is a dollar we can send somewhere else. Against credit card debt or into a retirement account, for instance.
Besides, if you think we're saving only a few cents, you obviously haven't priced a box of aluminum foil or a ream of paper lately.
