One Woman's trash...

So I pretty much believe there are two kinds of people in this world-Savers and Thrower-awayers. I myself am a saver, like my dad, and my mom likes to throw things away. This has caused no ends of quarrels, but I can't throw away perfectly good things just because I don't have a lot of space for them. First of all what if I need them again? Second I hate the idea of being wasteful and third a lot of these things I have are my history. Letters, ticket stubs, my old clothes and toys from when I was a kid-this is my past, my life. Somehow along the way my old barbie got tossed and I so regret that!

I also am a partaker of things other people are going to jettison, mostly books and furniture, (I just can't stand the idea of perfectly good things in a landfill! And some people do discard the most wonderful things). As you may have guessed I like yard sales, but what I really like are signs that read FREE on old furniture that people set out on the curb. I picked up a great big bookself this winter (good thing I drive a minivan)! My roommate is a bit of a bargain finder as well. Yesterday she found a really cool solid wood mission-style table on someone's curb-for free. Well she snatched that up in a jiffy and now it looks really cool in our house.

I read this article quite a few months ago in the New York Times about a group of people in New York that live entirely on garbage-I mean they eat things people throw away, like dumpster diving! and furnish their homes and their bodies with perfectly good things that people can't be bothered with anymore (there is even a term for this stuff-Mongo). And these aren't like homeless types, these are people with real jobs and such that have dedicated themselves to not consuming so much. Amazing. I of course could never live out of the trash, but it's an interesting idea.

If I do actually have to throw something out-like real garbage I always try to recycle as much as I can. As a kid I would recycle pop cans and newspaper (because that is pretty much the only recycling you could do in Utah County), but now I'm in Salt Lake I can recycle almost everything. It's lovely. I've decided to get evenmore earth friendly and now I recycle cups and plastic things that I get when I eat out. I just scrape them off and then put them in the recycling when I get home. I know it sounds a bit fanatic, but it is not hard and makes my conscience feel oh so much better. Along with recycling more, I try to use less, my mantra is Reuse, Reduce, Recycle! I hardly ever buy water bottles. I either opt for a drinking fountain or reuse a water bottle. I'm also going to start taking my own bag grocery shopping instead of getting plastic sacks and I try to buy things in larger packages instead of getting lots of small packages.
Well I'm not as Eco-friendly as I want to be yet, but it's a start.

I think this saver/collector personality of mine has extended into all areas of my life. Most of my jobs have revolved around collections of some sort-Herbaria, Libraries and Museums. I even love dictionaries which are really just collections of words.

Well here is to are the savers/collectors/historians/recyclers/scavengers of the world-I salute you!