The holidays have come and gone, and now what do we do - try to tuck those new sweaters into sweater drawers and new books onto bookshelves and generally find homes for all the presents, lovely and not, we've been presented with.
I don't know about you, but I've always secretly admired people who haul one shirt or skirt to the Big Brothers box every time a new one comes into their home.
And while I try to maintain some sort of discipline about the durable goods sloshing around our lives, even after a Christmas like this one where 80 per cent of our gifts were consumables and we managed to jam all our unrecyclable waste into a shoebox, I'm still astonished at the number of things we have to make way for in this household alone. (Multiply by 1.6 million households in B.C., 12.4 million in Canada...)
Even The Dog managed to acquire one durable consumer item this year, albeit a tiny one - a flashing light the size of a cigarette butt for alerting drivers at night. But it came in an unrecyclable bubble pack.
Years ago I was watching TV with a girlfriend when a commercial came on advertising those clear plastic bags you can suck the air out of with your vacuum cleaner hose to store more stuff you don't need under your bed or in a dusty closet.
I found the whole thing mildly depressing. But the slight widening of her eyes and arching of her brow would have definitely indicated interest had a psychologist been on the other side of a two-way mirror watching us watching. I think she actually ordered some of the damn things but, of course, they didn't really control the mounds of stuff in her life. They egged her on.
Then you've got those depressing plastic jumbo containers, again for storing stuff in some forgotten corner. They're usually made from a pale, institutional blue plastic you can "see through," I guess in case you forget what it was that was so important you couldn't let it go.
I remember finding under my parents' bed some of these lousy containers filled with something and it pained me. Even though they'd just moved from a house-house to a smaller duplex-house, it was like they were "slipping."
Ah, yes, the road to hell is paved with one Tupperware storage container at a time, so give me a good honest messy basement or closet anytime. Better yet, give me more ways to keep the lid on the "stuff factor," better known as reducing, reusing and recycling.
We may no longer be rolling around in 18kt-gold days of consumption, but we're at least still in the 10kt range and we could all use with a good dose of clutter helpers, whether for too many leftovers or too much packaging. Here goes:
THE ULTIMATE HEAD EATING ITS TAIL
London Drugs is the only major Canadian retailer to have a full packaging recycling program. You can leave all the packaging from your new what's-it right there in the store - even the styrofoam - and they'll recycle it responsibly.
You can also recycle all your old electronic gadgets and appliances there. If you actually bought the thing at LD and still have your receipt, they'll waive the recycling fee. You can haul in old cell phones, PDAs, batteries, disposable cameras, compact fluorescent bulbs, even your old plastic bags and they'll recycle it all properly.
When it comes to getting rid of your old computer to make way for the new, they work with the good guys out at Genesis Recycling in Aldergrove, the best recyclers I've found this side of the Yangtze River (http://www.genesisrecycling.ca/ 604-667-1117). They ensure the hard drive is destroyed and every bit of usable material is reused and not shipped to some god-forsaken village in China. Ten million pounds of electronics recycled so far by LD and Genesis, and counting.
BREEZIN' FREEZIN'
Sick of all those leftovers and goodies? Don't chuck 'em, freeze 'em. It took me years after I left home to figure out the worth of a freezer and that was when you still had to defrost them! You'll be amazed what you can jam into a Ziploc freezer bag and keep for a few months, even in a dorky little fridge freezer. Think of how happy you'll be to find mince tarts and cheese sticks on a bleak February night. Oh, I forgot - the Olympics will be here. You won't be too bleak, so think of how glad you'll be to find it all in your freezer and avoid a trip down a crowded highway to the store. Just don't treat your freezer like a midden - eat up whatever's in there before, say, Valentine's Day.
NOT CRUISIN' FOR A BRUISIN'
If you're one of the millions of Canadians who sends packages home every Christmas, then save all those plastic domes and bubbles and silly plastic fruit baskets that constitute packaging and can't be recycled. They make perfect protectors around delicate gifts or bows and baubles. Hopefully they'll get recycled again at the other end.
STOCK UP THAT TURKEY
If you're almost at the end of that turkey carcass, wait before you throw it in the garbage where the coyotes or raccoons will haul it off like bandits. It's easy to make homemade stock, the basis of any good homemade soup or sauce. If you don't want to make soup, consider little Puddles or Kitty. Adding a bit of stock to their dinner will make them extraordinarily happy for the New Year. Just leave out the onions - not good for pets.
Classic Turkey Stock
(From the Canadian Living Christmas Book )
Break the turkey carcass into three to four pieces into a large pot with 16 c. of water. Bring to a boil and skim off froth. Add one each: chopped celery stock, carrot, onion, one bay leaf, half a tsp. each of dried thyme and whole black peppercorns and three sprigs of fresh parsley. Simmer, partially covered, for two hours. Strain through a cheesecloth lined sieve (or a sieve alone works). Cool. Cover and refrigerate until the fat solidifies. Skim off the fat and give it to your dog. Makes about 12 cups. You can store stock for only three days in the fridge, or freeze it for up to four months.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who makes Mexican-style soup with her turkey stock.
