21 Feb 09 Recyling In Charleston
There’s a lot of stuff that can be recycled.
Some stuff can be recycled in the home, without even going to the dump or the recycling center.
We’ve now purchased some of those 99 cent fabric grocery bags at Publix (and other supermarkets do them too). They not only mean less plastic in the landfill, but it’s actually easier when carrying the groceries from the car to the kitchen, as you don’t have a couple of dozen flimsy plastic bag, but 3-4 strong fabric ones.
However, we’ve still got a huge stack of those plastic ones, and, i’ll admit that sometimes we forget to put the fabric ones back into the car.
The recycling bit? We use those plastic carriers in the trash cans around the house. It saves us money, and we’re not using yet more plastic.
We collect Aluminum cans here too. It takes us a good while, as I tend to drink bottled beer or a growler, and I don’t drink soda, and Kathy not very often. Still, they do build up, and there is a place we take them on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston, that pays for them. Last time we went, we got about $8-9. It wasn’t a lot, not for over a years worth, but its better than nothing, for no effort beyond finding somewhere to store a few hundred crushed cans.
I recycle paper as much as possible. We don’t usually buy a newspaper, but we still get plenty of that annoying junk mail garbage. We use that in the fireplace, helps get the wood burning.
As for office paper, I recycle that too. When I’ve printed stuff out, invariably on one side, and I’ve finished with it, I cut them into four, and use the other, blank side for notes. I keep a stack of that on my desk at all times.
Stuff you can easily recycle in Charleston includes, Aluminum Cans, Steel Cans and empty Aerosol Cans, Plastic, and Glass Bottles. Also Paper products and magazines.
There are a number of sites around the county where used motor oil and flters can be disposed of, if you change your own oil.
There are also a number of recycling centers that accept bigger household items, such as computers, monitors, printers, adding machines, telephones, TVs, CDs DVDs, and cassette players, and other, similar items.
There you can also take old paints, cleaners, polishes, pesticides, and automotive products.
To find out more about recycling in Charleston county, check out this link
Remember though, not only are you helping the community by recycling some of your waste, but you can also save yourself some money in the process!
Tags: aluminum cans, annoying junk, blank side, bottled beer, drink soda, empty aerosol cans, fireplace, glass bottles, groceries, grocery bags, growler, household items, junk mail, landfill, motor oil, plastic carriers, recycling center, stack, steel cans, trash cans
02 Apr 08 Food
It’s often said that food tastes better the next day.
Well some things do. I can’t say I’m keen on warmed up fries, or cold liver, but many things ARE better the next day.
I almost always eat lunch at home. In fact, we eat most of our meals at home. For starters (excuse the pun) you know what you’re getting, and it’s almost always a whole lot cheaper.
I can’t help but smile at those that complain they have no money, but get 2-3 coffees at starbucks each day, and also breakfast on the way to the office, lunch out while they’re there, and sometimes a meal on the way home too. It’s easy to spend in one day eating out, the same as one would spend on a whole weeks groceries, and that’s not eating in the posh places downtown either!
As I’m more often than not working at home, I usually cook dinner. I try to make a varied selection of meals, and we try to eat as much fresh food as possible. TV dinners are a no-no.
Do we have a weekly plan? Heck no, not usually. I often make up my mind what’s for dinner at around 2pm or sometimes even later. One doesn’t have to spend hours in the kitchen cooking or preparing many meals anyway. I make full use of the microwave too; I don’t take any notice of those that walk around muttering about radioactive food. Oh, and if you only think of a microwave as something to defrost frozen items in, or re-heat leftovers, or the cup of coffee that’s gone cold (yes, I do all of those things too), then you’re missing out.
I often cook fresh vegetables (we try to have something green most mealtimes) in the microwave. Brocolli, cauliflower, asparagus all come out just fine. Potatoes cook great too.
Anyway, I digress. I wasn’t really writing about the virtues of the microwave, just mentioning it as another, perfectly acceptable (in my view) method of cooking.
As a child, my mother would buy a huge piece of beef, and we’d have roast beef dinner on Sunday, cold beef and pickles on Monday, and cottage pie on Tuesday. Now that was getting some mileage. It was a common thing though in England back then. In fact it was so common for housewives to buy a peice of meat on Saturday, big enough to last at least two days, that butchers stores (most of which were family run then) were usually closed on a Monday.
Nowadays I don’t do that, or stick to a routine as such. I don’t cook anything really exciting usually, as I’m busy working most afternoons. I also make use of a crockpot at times as well, and salads are good to eat, particularly in the warmer weather, and a variety of those can be made quite quickly too.
This evening…?
I’m not sure yet.
Tags: 2pm, asparagus, cauliflower, coffees, cottage pie, cup of coffee, fresh food, groceries, leftovers, mealtimes, method of cooking, microwave, office lunch, pickles, pun, starbucks, tv dinners, virtues, whole lot, working at home
02 Feb 08 Recycle
The Irish have embraced the use of cloth bags to carry their groceries, encouraged by a 33-cent tax on each plastic bag grabbed at the register, I read this in this morning’s New York Times.
What I find almost amusing, if it wasn’t a serious issue, is this whole concept of recycling.
When I was a kid, my mother would sent me to the local store to buy groceries. I always took a large cloth shopping bag. She kept one in a closet in the kitchen solely to keep vegetables in.
I would go to the greengrocer, and get the potatoes first. They went into the bottom. Not wrapped up, you understand, just loose potatoes from the greengrocers scale pan. Then the other vegetables went on top.
After that I would go next door to the bakers and get the bread. Fresh baked earlier that morning, unsliced. It would be put in a brown paper bag. My mother used those paper bags, along with some greaseproof paper, to wrap my fathers sandwiches for work.
I’d perhaps have to go to the grocers to get some ham and cheese, again it was wrapped in paper. The same at the butchers. No plastic wrap in sight.
Milk was delivered to the door step each day in glass bottles, that we put outside when empty which the milkman took away again to re-used, sterilized, and re-filled with more fresh milk. If we bought soda, it was in a glass bottle, on which we paid a few pennies deposit, and got back when we took the bottles back.
If my father went to the hardware store for four screws, he got just that. Four screws. We also had a local tailor and shoe-mender. New zips got put into pants, and soles on shoes, socks got darned. Oh, and if the TV or radio developed a fault, there was a nice man in another store that would usually be able to fix it for us.
Now, fast forward 40 years.
We go to the supermarket across town, using gas to get there. The potatoes are in a plastic bag, as are all the other vegetables, and the bread. The ham, cheese, and meat, and in sealed containers now. The milk is in a large plastic carton. Soda is in cans, and PET bottles.
Those hardware items like screws now usually come in a plastic container of 48 screws, that practically takes wire cutters to open, or cut fingers if trying to do it by hand.
Tailor? Get a zip sewn in? Heck, no, throw the pants away, and get a new pair! Same with the TV. It’s lasted 3-4 years, it’s time for a newer, bigger, higher definition one anyway. That one can go to the dump.
Now, there’s all this clamor for recycling projects and plans. It’s good. Sure. But, what about cutting back on some of that plastic? Do we need to have so much packaging? What about using glass again, and re-using the bottles?
Surely if we were to re-adopt some of those ideas from 40 years ago, we’d have a lot less going in the landfill to start with? That’s before we start spending more money on any other municipal recycling schemes.
Tags: butchers, cloth bags, fresh milk, garbage, glass bottle, glass bottles, greaseproof paper, greengrocer, groceries, grocers, hardware store, local store, milkman, new york times, nice man, paper bags, plastic carton, plastic wrap, recycling, shopping bag, soles, trash, waste, zips
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