when my parents owned the fruit and veg shop, we only ever used paper bags. and any large orders were delivered to the persons house in a cardboard fruit box. every thing was loose. and any slightly on the turn or anything bruised were sold quick smart at a bargain basement price for soup. Quality is what brings the customers back, I can here my dad telling me again and again.
Not a bit of plastic in sight. and because it was loose, you could look through the boxes before you accepted them.
None of those lurker potatoes that are damaged or even worse green in a plastic bag. sweating and growing eyes.
Good times past. I used to sit out the back whilst my dad would cash that shop up and drink hot bovril or an oxo cube dissolved in hot water.
Then the supermarkets came. We had to shut the green grocers, the 2 newsagents and the little deli which was the light of my mothers life. her eye glisten when she talks about that shop. When I go home, even now, people ask me how my mother would use such and such in a recipe. She beat the supermarkets like sainsburys with their recipe cards. She had a big book of recipes, some written in English, some not. it sat on a lecturn at the end of the coffee bar. And people would come with a piece of paper or a scrap of envelope and copy recipes. And buy the items for the recipe...Although I am sure she used to give out tasters of things and left one of the ingredient out from the recipe, that gave it the just so taste. It made people come back.
My sister now has that book. I have no clue where it is, if she doesnt.
Good times, good times.
So nothing to recycle from there. so the real answer is to grow as much as you can yourself. Buy from the butcher, taking a tupperware box for the meat you collect. and have the milk man deliver.
Try not to buy other things and stop consuming things I dont really need. I am trying. And just by typing this is pointing out all the obvious things I hadnt thought about before....
English, Ukrainian, Russian, Italian. I think that is about it. The Italian was from a lady who worked for my parents , she was a grafter. I think she liked it alot there, and she got to take home food that was near its date end for free. A big condemned food item lover.
Another thing people dont do now, my parents had a local artist, come to the shop and paint the windows with christmas scenes. now peoples newsagents are covered in red coca cola adverts. Think Arkwrights store in open all hours, but without the till! LOL one was opposite a school. I will never forget, my mum telling me one of the boys in my class (whose mother is Polish), used to buy ladies small tights, use the shop toilet and make her son wear them under his grey trousers... I dont think anyone ever knew that.
It was also my job to make the lollipop lady a warm drink and take it out to her.
What a great story, S.O.L - and what a great shame that the days of small, friendly local shops have been curtailed by the supermarket era.
Our village has just one store-cum-post-office. John is more than just the postmaster and store owner. He runs a mini local social service. He delivers newspapers to the old folk who find it difficult to get to the store and he generally keeps an eye on their welfare as best he can. He is due to retire next year or maybe the year after. The village will really miss him. He is a real grafter, like your parents were, and work 6 or 6.5 days a week. Yes, he and his wife take three or four week-long breaks each year but, my God, he works hard for his rewards.
Never knowingly underfed
SOL said:
It is all a bit of a faff, but I dont want the £1000 fine for not complying. Especially if all the councils are going to start spying on us
Are you serious?! A fine of £1000? Why don't the manufacturers change the packaging? You are not responsible for how they package things. I think your sister is right, leave it all at the check-out! And does the council actually pay people to spy??
I live in New Zealand, we have rubbish collection for landfill once a week and in our area we also have a green recycling bin which is smaller than say a fish bin, in it we put cans, bottles and recyclable plastics, this is emptied once a week also. Once put out on the road we stack it with newspapers and cardboard for recycling as well. But there are no "recycling nazis" and I think it's appaling for them to talk about fines!
wow, I'd forgotten all about the selection of bins I used to have in the UK.
Any rubbish we want to bin requires a walk across green to a communal bin. In the past 8 months we have deposited 3 carry bags full of stuff we can't find another use for. Mind you one of the barns is filling up nicely with:
plastic bottles (to be filled with mud and made into retaining walls);
glass bottles (washed and reused for alcoholic treats);
tin cans (to be painted black and used for solar collector);
toilet roll inners (seedling starters);
glass jars (washed and used for preserves - easy to buy new lids here);
pile of 'other' that will come in useful.
Rest is either composted, or burnt on petchka.
Not sure what I'm going to do with all this stuff once all the projects are complete but as that is some way off hopefully recycling here will be improved.
Failing is not a fault, refusing to try is
Also to note the site taking the battle to stop junk mail and cut down on your recycling - Stop Junk Postal Mail
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