When I had gone to my parent's place recently, where they are growing fruits in about 10 acres, I could see quite a few things to support this claim. So, I wanted to document this and share with all of you.
My father learnt grafting of trees and raises his own nurseries. Old used fertiliser bags are used for this nursery. These plastic bags are big and sturdy; plants are grown in these for about 2 years before planted into the field. (In fact, these fertiliser and cement bags are quite useful for many things in our villages - people make them into handbags, carrying sand in construction places etc.)There are alternatives to this bag also. When the big drum used to store water broke on top, it was immediately cut and used as a container for another big plant.
Sometime ago, I had seen this used for storing drinking water for the cows. Plastic cans, buckets of any size, any shape will be useful and treasured in the villages. These days, Paint companies sell materials for painting walls in plastic buckets. As they have handles, people use them for carrying water, vegetables and fruits from the fields, garbage from home ... almost anything.
Here, is our bucket with washed clothes waiting to be dried. See the photograph below in which something else is dried. Old used plastic wires are used for all kinds of things - hanging clothes for drying, binding things and as a support for growing plants. Old television cables are sought after things - quite good they are !
Not that they do not buy anything in plastic covers. They do. These days, everything purchased in the shop are sold in plastic covers only. But, the difference is they recycle these covers. Like the carry bag and the cover in which detergent powder was purchased. They wash them, dry them to store household things - ranging from onions to cash, from rusted nails to ash. Here is ash stored in a 'Semia' cover.
Why Ash, you ask ? Since most of them use firewood, they get quite a lot of ash. It is used for cleaning vessels. Vessels get really black and dirty when cooked using firewood. So, they need good powder for cleaning them. Sometimes, they come out with some ingenious methods. My father has hypertension and hence has to take tablets every day. All the used tablet covers were saved in our house and I asked my mother the reason.
She said, "They are quite good for washing dirty vessels. We use ash and these tablet covers, rub the vessels strongly and all the dirt, black soot, everything will get cleaned," proudly she said - without realising what a terrific method of recycling this is. This comes naturally and people want to use anything that can last again and again - in whatever way.When adults are like this, children must surely be one step ahead, isn't it ? Here is how they 'recycle' things literally !!
The old cycle tyre is used by this boy for playing. He never tires of running around, driving his vehicle - a sight that symbolises the recycling spirit of our people in the villages.
1 comment:
There have been a lot of changes in our recycling habit here in East Germany/ former GDR compared to our lives before 1989.
Before 1989 ressources of the people were very limited (unless you had some giving relatives in West Germany): Money but more than that very limited sales offers. So a cooperative system of exchanging goods established. The baby carriage was used at least by six of us cousins. We children got nice toys as presents - but many times not at all new; the cycle simply got new paint, the puppets new (self made) dresses for christmas. Many people developed a high creativity and sensibility in "make new out of old". You could see old car wheels planted with flowers. Old bottle-boxes used as boards (at least in our cellar, in our familie´s tent and my teenage room.) I remember my mother cutting cardboard boxes for paper notes and collecting the silver paper inside the chocolate bars to make christmas stars out of it. This was so much a habit in my family that I used to say as a child "don´t need to buy that, we can make it ourselves".
Ofcourse now there is the growing second-hand-sales-net of ebay. There are the big supermarkets selling all kinds of things for "doing yourself"-ideas. The second hand shops are still there, and it is not unusual to re-use the things others have thrown away on the streets as bulky refuse.
But who would take out the nails of an old piece of wood now ? And you risk to be considered to overdo if you cut used paper into notes despite we are among the people with the highest consumption of paper.
And: our economy is built on the consumption of goods. So I will be responsible for job cuts. What to say ?
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