Zero Waste Lessons from my Granny Helga

Titta Jones
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

My Granny Helka was the No 1. environmentalist I have known.

She was living the Zero Waste life out of necessity and common sense. It was more about saving money than getting rid of waste. I suppose plastic packaging at the time would have been new and fancy and even valuable. Before it all got out of control.

For saving money or saving planet here are some of the practical things I remember:

Plastic Bags: Helka cut them in strips and crochet or knitted them in to rugs for the hallway floor or utility room floors. Seriously.

Glass bottles: Helka washed the bottles and used them to store home made berry and fruit cordial for the winter months. The ones with screw tops were used to bring milk in for lunch.

Helka’s Tips for Food packaging:

Butter wrapping (foil, like Irish butter wrapping): Used as aluminium foil to cover up cooked food in the fridge or when re heating.

Plastic containers with lid: always washed and re-used for food storage and freezing.

Yogurt pots: were washed, stored and used for planting seeds in the spring.

Bread bags: used as sandwich wrappers for lunches.

She grew vegetables, foraged, fixed and mended old. She is not unique, I am sure your Granny and Grandad had similar tips. We can learn a lot from the previous generations for the benefit of the future generations, and for our own Zero Waste Efforts.

So anyone up for crochet rugs out of plastic bags? Maybe, maybe not, but we can make better choices tackling the waste problem without loosing our love of convenience.

Here’s to our best efforts towards Zero Waste living, please comment and share here your Granny’s or Grandad’s tips that we could benefit in our daily life. And let me know if you crochet a plastic bag rug…

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Titta Jones

Written by

CEO of Lilly's Eco Clean Ltd @lillysecoclean wife, 'mum' of two dogs, average cook, aspiring knitter, enjoy fitness and nature, sustainable living and beauty

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