Last night, my daughter called and told me about something interesting that happened earlier in the day. Someone at her office couldn’t finish her sandwich and needed something to wrap it in. My daughter opened her desk drawer and handed her a piece of aluminum foil. It wasn’t wrinkled, but it had been used, washed, and kept for future use.
“You reuse aluminum foil?” her coworker asked, clearly surprised.
“My mother always does this. So did my grandmother,” Lauren explained.
I’ve shared this story before, but I’ll mention it again to set the scene. Back when I lived in Ohio, my sister lived just 10 minutes away. Even back in the 70s, we believed in recycling, even though it wasn’t yet a widely popular idea. Since there were no recycling pickups at that time, we saved all our recyclables in containers. At the start of each month, Karen would stop by my house, and we’d take everything we’d saved to town together.
Here’s the thing: most people don’t think about reusing things like aluminum foil and plastic wrap. If you wash, dry, and store your aluminum foil instead of throwing it away, you can reuse it for a long time. If you save bread wrappers and use them instead of plastic wrap, you’ll rarely need to buy more.
There’s no need to use plastic bags for fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store either. Lauren bought me cotton mesh bags to use for that purpose, and I’ve been using them for years. The same goes for trips to the drugstore or other stores. I take a reusable bag in and use that to carry out what I buy.
There’s a lot of talk these days about the environment and what we can do to help. Sometimes it feels like we’re too small to make a difference. But if ten people start doing small things like this, it can add up. Fewer plastic bags end up in the trash, and that’s a good start.
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