Lifetime recycler learns a lesson about reusing

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. This slick, alliterative mantra came into the lexicon near the dawn of the environmental movement in the early 1970s. If you were being raised by parents who had come up through the Great Depression, however, chances are really good you had been living by some variation of these words all along.

Such was the case in my childhood home, where each grocery bag became a book cover, every tin can became a seed incubator and the whole idea of “paper towels” seemed like a dubious plot to sell you a throwaway version of something every kitchen already had in endlessly absorbent cotton.

Mom didn’t buy things we didn’t need, and you could bet the hand-sewn knee patches on your hand-me-down blue jeans that whatever she did purchase would have every thread of life wrung out of it by the time it hit the rag bag.

The conservation message landed well with me, and its practice can be witnessed all over my house, from the pickle jars of nails and screws hung across my basement ceiling to the cup full of used toothbrush “chain cleaners” attached to my workbench. That “cup” is actually a repurposed frozen orange juice container, by the way.

My wife happily shares the effort to make maximum use of all things at all times as well. Her world is filled with art supplies housed in creatively adapted plastic vessels of every shape and size. And her paints travel along with her to class in a big roll-away suitcase with duct tape-reinforced corners. When a coffee can goes empty in our house, intense discussion is given to who has the greater claim to its afterlife.

It was into this environment that mega-packs of chewing gum arrived just a few years back. These are the fist-sized, plastic containers that reseal with a smart “snap” and hold a few dozen cubes of your favorite flavor without all the usual, individually wrapped waste.

Kristin and I were early adopters of the product and have become obsessive reusers of the containers. At present you may find “gum cups” filled with nuts, bolts, seeds, beads, spices, staples, dimes and dog treats in our home.

It’s that last item on the list that has left me doubting the wisdom of keeping a dozen look-alike containers filled with random things lying all about the house — especially when their original purpose was to house a daily consumable one might reflexively pop into his or her open mouth and commence to chew.

I also have come to question my own good sense as the individual who actually placed a “gum cup” full of bite-sized, beef-flavored dog treats in a drawer directly beside an actual gum cup filled with its intended product.

What I will never have to question is my reaction to popping a dog treat into my own mouth and immediately chomping down. That result has been dramatically confirmed.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.