You know how every so often you see a news report about how much garbage, especially plastic, is found up some creek bed, in an inlet of a lake or swirling around some atoll in the ocean? Well, what do you suppose would happen if all of us, yes, me included, cleaned out our cupboards and actually threw away all the plastic containers that held yogurt, sour cream, and margarine?
I remember going to clean out my grandfather’s house after he passed away and finding a string in a kitchen drawer that had maybe 500 little plastic tabs off of loaves of bread. Really 500! I still have no idea what miracle invention he discovered that would have him keep those little plastic bread sack closers. But! Yes, a plastic hoarding “but.” All of those tubs are great to put leftovers in.
Growing up it took at least three tries to get into the real “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” container before I would get the real, plastic butter. That was years before Tupperware. You have to admit, even though Tupperware touted the “burb” of the bowl to keep things fresh, the ease of putting on the butter container lid was way easier.
I don’t remember ever not having some sort of used and reused container being kicked around our backyard after it wore out its usefulness in the house. They became food dishes for the dogs or cats, collection containers for little pretty rocks, or even a place for fishing worms. You learn quickly that you need to poke holes in those storage containers or the worms—well, they die and are stinky and gross after a few days in the sun.
Among piles of stuff I have cleaned out of houses after renters have left are always stacks of different plastic containers. Some with lids, some without. Who keeps containers without lids? That still baffles me.
Interestingly enough, you find out a lot about what used containers someone has in their house. A lot of yogurt means there was either a healthy person or someone who just liked the sweetness of Peach & Cherry Whipped goo. In my house, it was always the brown aforementioned fake butter tubs. In various sizes. From just the one-pound to up to the three-pound buttery mush. I don’t know if it is true or not, but I heard once that margarine is just one step away from becoming PVC or plastic pipe. If, as you eat that fake butter, and think about the smell of PVC plastic pipe, you can actually taste that smell. Again, I don’t know if that’s true. I did, though, go to real butter after I learned that.
Moving from plastic to metal, how many three-pound coffee cans does it take to outfit a farm shop? Or a DYI homeowners’ garage? Millions. I say millions. In our farming shop for over 60 years, coffee cans became a staple. You never throw out a coffee can. You wash it, of course, then set it on the back porch or the sidewalk that goes out to the shop. Then? Magically they all got carried away and were soon filled with nuts, bolts, old electrical parts and pieces, copper this and that, nails, screws. Everything is meticulously separated and put in a can. Then the cans start to gather under the work bench or along the back wall of the shop. Always lined up, holding just the right do-dad that is needed to fix, repair, or build something of the utmost importance.
Coffee cans, metal ones, if you ever have had an opportunity to collect them, always, no matter how many times they were washed or used, always still had a faint aroma of coffee in them. The plastic containers of today’s coffee just don’t have the clout or the wearability of a metal coffee can. No. If you put heavy tenpenny ring shank nails in a plastic coffee can, don’t pick it up with just one hand, or you will spend the next bit of time picking up not only the nails but little pieces of the shattered coffee container too.
For one, I am glad so many of us keep and reuse these items. If not for us “keepers,” I truly think the oceans would fill up faster than they are with the plastic water bottles that we all seem to think we need to carry with us everywhere we go. Come on—did we all of a sudden think we would die of thirst on a three-hour outing without a designer bottle of water?
Metal or plastic of yesteryear, is paper or plastic today.
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at [email protected]
Really!
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