Seniors- do You remember what your parents were doing to recycle daily objects ?

Yes my Mom used to darn sock also.

We also had to save our bath soap, We would wittle it down into shavings and use it for the wash soap in the washing machine.

Saturday was bath night, and two or three of us would take baths in the same bath water, (not at the same time) before it was drained and refilled for the next ones.There were 7 of us kids in our family.

We used to save all our paper type trash in a seperate box in the back porch, and when it was full, take it down to the backyard, where we had a large metal drum. We would then burn all the paper. The rest was just garbage for the garbage men to pick up.

My brothers wore hand me down clothes from my older brothers. And since she was not a sewing machine seamstress type , she would always be ironing on knee paches on my brothers pants when they got a hole in the knee, too make them last a little longer. And I got stuck with hand me down clothes from my cousin, who was a bigger size than me.

Even though my parents had grown up during the depression,

they wern't the savers some were. Rubber bands and string,

and foil wrapping paper were saved to be used again. And

newspapers were used to line the garbage cans outside to

keep it fairly clean. Lunch sacks were re used at least twice.

Water was always added to bottles of soap to get the last little bit of suds. Clothes I grew out of were given to a cousin,

and the same with toys the others could play with also. Years

later, things were donated to the Salvation Army or Diabled

Veterans, when their trucks were in the neighborhood.

Mom also mended socks, as her mom before her. I think it

is a 'lost art' today. How many have one of those darning

knobs in a drawer? I know I never have.

I grew up in Europe during WW2 , we had very, very little, but we used up everything. My mother cooked the potato peels and the dog (not having much else) loved them. Same with apples.

We went to the saw mill and collected saw dust, we packed it extremely tight in a metal tube my father made and put it on TOP of the coal stove, the saw dust would burn slowly from within and the tube would get hot and warm up the whole kitchen.

We never ever turned on a light until we could not see each others faces anymore. We sat in the greying room telling stories.

any kind of paper became toilet paper.

My mother would put hems of different fabrics and colors on my skirts and dresses as I got taller.

Same dress lasted quite awhile.

Mending was a routine which never stopped, be it for the towels getting thin, the socks with a hole, the lace curtains starting to separate, sheets and tablecloths too.

A gypsy wagon would come around and fix the worn aluminum pans with a washer. Same pans lasted forever.

If we did have rags which was not often , a "rag man" would come by and weigh them on a hook scale and pay you a few pennies for them. He in turn would sell them to a factory who used them in other ways.

We never knew the word waste when I grew up.

Bu then that was a long time ago.

Both my grandfathers were immigrants and became tailors in the USA. My maternal grandfather was a farmer and restaurateur in Austria. My paternal grandfather was a violinist. Those were not great ways to make a living in a new country without knowledge of the language. If you could measure, cut on a straight line and use a sewing machine, you were a tailor in a sweat shop! My maternal grandfather died at 39 and my resourceful grandmother used her entire life savings to put a small down payment on a big house and ran a boarding house while her kids began work at about age 9 or 10. My mother was the exception. She was allowed to finish HS and after retiring, she went on to college. There were rumors that some of my grandmother's tenants were of slightly less than rosy repute but we won't get into that. Her estate, which was her paid-off house, was enough so that all four of her living children could put a down payment on their first homes or start small businesses. And so it goes.

I can remember mom darning socks the way yours did. When we needed more milk, my mom would rinse out the glass milk bottles and put them on the back porch where the milk man would collect the empties and leave us fresh milk (which sometimes froze in the winter if we did not collect it first thing in the morning..lol We had to carefully clean and smooth out aluminum foil to be reused. She would save twine , threads and roping and wind them into balls for reuse, Gift wrapping was carefully removed from gifts,smooth out or ironed and saved for another time. Greeting cards were reused if possible, with the personal handwritten parts carefully cut away. Her sewing machine was always ready to mend clothing..Long sleeves that were worn at the cuff or elbow became short sleeves. Pants be came shorts. If we received clothing handed down from people she would alter them to fit, Left overs from a meal were made into casseroles or stews, Instead of getting new furniture she would make new seat covers to replace the worn ones, she reappolstered the couch when the fabric was worn and painted or restained the wooden parts, seeds from some of the produce and flowers in our gardens were harvested and planted the next year,. my grand mother turned fabric scraps into blankets and quilts which are still being used by family members today..My grandfather would take rags, cut them into long strips, stitch the ends together and weave "rag rugs" that were very sturdy. He would sell these or give them as gifts back in the day..there are many more things that I remember but I want to save room here for other posters to give their answers...lol

My mother used tea bags at least 3 times. She saved the wire twists from bread, etc. She had a dryer, but never used it, preferring to hang clothes out on a line in the backyard. Leftovers from a meal were recylcled into another meal. Old shirts were cleaning rags. I'm sure there were more. She was a child in the depression.

Everything my Dad didn't burn in the Burn barrel, we put in the mulch pile, for the garden or the rabbit hutch, so he could eat it and that went in the garden...all broken plates and dishes were in the bottom of my moms prize plants, African Violets, and such...We didn't throw anything away, storage was butter tubs, food containers, and we drank out of jelly jars and those little Kraft cheese jars!I was the last of 6 kids so do you know how I had to keep my socks up!rubber bands or masking tape!Which were saved from the daily paper...we had a "middle drawer" that you could find just about anything in the world! except money, ha ha ,what we really needed!

Nothing was ever thrown away. It started to look like a dump in the house. Left over food, clothes that didn't fit, everything had a purpose (eventually). I was embarrassed to bring friends over but my parents grew up during the depression; so I understand now.

I would have said my parents never recycled, until I read these answers.

My mom saved every bag that bread came in, and we had stacks of the aluminum tv dinner trays and the chicken pot pie trays.

And if it wasn't for hand me down clothes, I would have gone through life naked.

Thanks for the memories!

nothing was thrown away if it could be fixed mended or turned into something else

mum made a dress one Sunday afternoon to go out in on the same night out of a pair curtains. It was very nice too