Were we greener 50 years ago?
May 5, 2008
Everything old is new again, or at least recycled
Like a lot of families these days, mine dutifully recycles cans, glass, paper, cardboard, beverage containers, milk jugs, and more. We’ve done it since the kids were in grade school. In fact it was largely at their insistence that we started in the first place. Little did I know recycling is actually a time-honoured tradition that didn’t spring up recently.
A couple of months ago I was chatting with my 86 year-old mother. I’m not sure how, but the topic of recycling came up and I was explaining what it entailed and why it was such a good thing.
She listened patiently for a while, then shook her head. “Oh you kids (everyone younger than 75 is a kid to Mum). Your generation thinks they invented everything. We recycled during the last war. Had to. They needed the materials for the war effort. And we didn’t stop at tins and glass either. Any metal. Old razor blades. Toothpaste tubes. Rags, paper, bones, drippings, ash from the coal stove, rubber. Rubber was a big item. There was a constant parade of men coming to cart stuff away.”
“Bones and ashes?’ I asked. “Must have been garbage collectors hauling it off to the dump.”
“No. I’m sure it all went toward the war.”
I decided this warranted further research. Not that I don’t believe my own Mum, but bones and ashes?
Apparently bones and drippings such as bacon fat and grease were used to make glue for aircraft. A half pound of fat rendered enough glycerin for 150 Bren gun rounds. And ashes were an ingredient in building materials, hence the term cinder block.
There were some pretty strict conservation measures as well. Men’s suits couldn’t have wide lapels or cuffs. Women went without silk stockings and instead used make-up and drew fake seams down the backs of their legs. Foods were strictly rationed. And the Ontario government imposed a 40 mile per hour (64 kilometres per hour) speed limit to save gas and wear and tear on rubber tires.
If Mum chided my generation for thinking recycling was new and wonderful, previous generations could chide her. It seems that throughout history, war and recycling have gone hand in hand. In fact, in 1776 during the American War of Independence, a statue of King George III was recycled into bullets which were then used against his troops.
War wasn’t the only impetus for recycling. Economics played a big role too. As early as the 11th century, the Japanese were recycling paper, a trend that didn’t catch on in Europe and North America until about 600 years later. A whole industry evolved from people picking through waste, salvaging anything that had potential resale value. In fact some cities gained a revenue stream from the resale of usable items collected by their street cleaners.
Even earlier, recycling was a necessity. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, broken items such as furniture, tools and cooking implements; building materials such as wood, bricks and even hardware, were constantly repaired and reused because of the difficulty in replacing them. This activity grew less crucial as factories began mass producing everyday domestic goods.
There was a resurgence in recycling during the Depression, again for economic reasons. People just couldn’t afford to replace broken, or worse, out of fashion items with new ones.
In terms of the environment, the advent of packaging in Europe during the 1500s, and selling food in glass or metal containers in the 1800s, created more waste and the need for its collection and disposal. This was exacerbated in the 1900s with the onset of plastics and our modern “throw-away” society. In fact dealing with waste has been an environmental issue since human beings evolved from a nomadic society into a more stationary society with permanent settlements
Were we greener 50 years ago? That’s fodder for a family debate. But no single generation can claim full credit. We’ve been green, off and on, for centuries. Perhaps now, though, it’s more important than ever.
Which reminds me. Be careful introducing other “modern” environmental concepts around the family dinner table. When my Mum began to describe recycling kitchen scraps into compost and growing an organic garden and having to rely on locally grown produce, eggs and milk, I decided to save discussion of the “new” 100-kilometre diet until a later date.
