RE-CYCLING: NEW THOUGHT OR OLD THOUGHT?

 

http://www.ehow.com/how_7720435_build-civil-war-candle-lantern.html

I started this "thought" with the idea that I was going to write about the stay-at-home Civil War women who saved all their urine because the war effort needed the nitrogen from it to make gunpowder.  Then I found this story about how to build Civil War candles because the Rebel Soldiers [Notice the Capital Letters?] couldn't afford night vision goggles like the Union Boys could.  So, I guess, some women did the urine thing and some did the wax thing.  I never did find a blog that discussed how they decided who was going to do what.  One way or the other, this just goes to prove that recycling is not a new idea.  The reason is slightly different, but the idea is the same.

http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/recycling/

Recycling is also ride-sharing, or,as we call it today, "Car-Pooling."  Same thing, even though Hitler is no longer around with the oven threat.  The link below the picture will lead you to a blog where you will see a couple more interesting pictures of World War 2 posters inviting the populace to save and to re-use.   You have read about the Victory Garden and the preserving of food that was very common during the War.  Those of us of a "certain age" grew up with the attitude that nothing should ever be wasted.  We were taught that every thing has an "after life."  Even food.  The garbage disposal unit of the past was a snouted porcine character called a pig, who lived in a sty and who was fed the edibles that were considered to be unfit for human consumption.  There is even a World War 2 poster that urges the saving of fats because they served for the manufacture of gunpowder.  Let me see if I can find it again.  There it is.  See, I might be old, but I don't have to make this stuff up.  

                                                         There is a lot of talk these days about saving money and 

 cutting costs.  Well, we cut costs during World War 2.  We re-used stuff.   We even reused food.  If not for ourselves, for the beings who would be our food tomorrow.  Now-a-days, we grow food for the animals that we process into fuel for our gas hogs...a different kind of animal indeed.  

I hate to call this next item a "thought", but I think it does come  close to being one.  Let's start with the famous word, "JOBS" and don't mean HIM, I mean WORK.  I've been thinking lately [hmmm, that makes this a "thought" I think].  If we saved more stuff and changed it into something else that someone could use or buy, that would be a gainful exercise, right?  It would save money and it would provide a job to the people who would work at changing it into something else useful.  Right?   So, now, is this a new thought or an old one?   Right now,considering the age of the guy whose putting it into writing, it has to qualify as an old thought.  Especially since I have lifted it out of the World War 2 play book.             

That's it for today.  Let's all go to work by throwing ourselves into making old things new, not throwing them away and wasting money on the next new thing that we don't really need.