We mid-westerners have been recycling for a very long time… Longer than it’s been en vogue, that’s for sure.
When I was a kid, we sometimes rode our bikes around the neighborhood asking for everyone’s empty “pop” cans just so we could sell them to the local collector. I’m not sure what he did with them, but he’d give us a very minimal amount for them and we’d then waste our earnings on sugary sweets from the neighborhood Village Pantry. (Wow… We were even giving economic stimulus packages to the dentist back then, too!)
When I was a kid, we made makeshift kites our of plastic garbage bags. We created a slip-and-slide out of a roll of plastic and the garden hose. And we made our bikes cooler by clipping a baseball card against the frame so it flittered in the spokes and sounded like a real moped. (Do those even exist anymore?!)
I remember going to family reunions and seeing salads served out of repurposed ice cream buckets. We bought “vintage” clothes from garage sales and “recycled” them by wearing them ourselves. We drank from Ball jars. (OK, my husband and I still do this… but so does our local steakhouse!)
So, I may not be Leo DiCaprio now, but I still know a thing or two about living green. I’d explain more, but I’ve got to go. I’m “repurposing” dish soap to fill my kids’ bubble machine. 
Tell me, now, what memories do you have of “living green” when you were a kid?
My favorite memory…not sure if it is green or not but it certainly saved money. We made popsicles out of apple juice. The old kind where you poured the juice into the mold and then placed the plastic stick in there. They would come out and we would have a frozen treat that was good for us!! By the way, Target’s dollar aisle (one of their best ideas ever) had these old popsicle makers a couple of weeks ago. I think I enjoy making them more than Avery does…
Stacey, I bought some of those molds for the kids a couple of summers ago! Try making popsicles with white grape juice. Yummy grape juice without the stains! So good!
I definitely remember making kites from all kinds of stuff. Did that all the time.
Also used old bolts of discarded fabric for our ‘Queen of Sheba’ dress-up outfits and forts and bridal veils, etc.
Collected huge piles of discarded newspapers for recycling.
Wore garage sale clothing over and over and over. (Ah, those indestructable purple corduroy trousers, I don’t miss you a bit.)
We were absolutely, totally required to turn off a light when we left a room; so now it’s a well-worn habit.
We rode our bikes everywhere.
And we were never ashamed to scrub a window with Dad’s old underwear.
There you go. Disco-era Green.
P.S. By the way, I never knew about the whole card in the bicycle spokes thing. Sounds so cool. I’m going to do that to mine. I have always wanted a cool bike.
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