Ever pick through someone's weekly trash?

[ultrarunner]

Those old refrigerators from the stone age may look cool and run forever but I owned them when I was younger and they had some issues. They weighed a ton and they were electricity hogs. I forget the numbers but bet you could but a new one with the savings over a fairly short time.

On the other hand, I saw an really nice IH one sell for $600 at a farm auction a couple years ago.


EDIT--They are also death traps for little kids and many have died over the years because of no inside latch. It was a common occurrence.

We have a lot of Amana when it comes to Freezers and Refrigerators... sure they use more electricity but with annual household kWh per day of 12... it is a cost I can live with.

There was a Green promotion for renters where the utility swapped out refrigerators if the tenant was paying electricity and low income.

One building with 6 units had all my refrigerators swapped... brand new energy efficient one... 5 years later only one was still working... disgusting and I made my opinion known... the reply is they were free...

 

[ultrarunner]

You don't say how old you are or where you grew up, but my take on my grandparents' generation was a bit different (I'm in my mid-ish 60s so these would be people raising a family post WWI into the 1920s-30s). Certainly they were thrifty, but most of the convenience items we take for granted didn't exist then. Cooking was from scratch because that's what there was. Manure was used for fertilizer because, again, that's what there was.

Behind every old farmhouse there was generally a huge trash pile...nobody took anything to the dump (assuming there even was one), they just dumped it in the woods or in a ravine. Cans, bottles, old shoes, bedsprings, even the remainders of old autos. Was digging some post holes here once and not far below the surface was a bunch of trash that had been covered over.
Much of New England was clear-cut, either to make what passed as farmland or by logging companies. Anything and everything was dumped in rivers and streams.

No, I wouldn't call their generation "green".

My first visit to the farm was at 4 in the 60's...

They did have an old metal pile... but sold it off.

The creeks were sacrosanct as people downstream used the water for drinking and livestock... piped into the farm.

No burn piles as such...

They were small Diary with never more than 40 milk cows tops... routine was all about grass and hay and milking twice a day x seven days a week.

My Grandparents had never been 50 miles from the farm until they came to California to visit us...

Anything that could be reused was... bottles and Ball jars were for preserves... that one year when I brought a case of Del Monte Cling peaches I learned they didn't have a modern can opener... on my next visit I saw Grandfather's basement workshop had a whole row of empty Del Monte cans neatly organized for nuts and bolts... he would have us kids straighten all the nails when they took down and old shed... no kidding.

Baking from scratch meant buying in bulk... what couldn't be composted or fed to the farm animals was often burned to heat the large wood/coal basement boiler...

Anything of metal was saved... sometimes for years until the scrap man would come through and buy it all... the farm co-op was a lifeline...

They never owned a car... bought a tractor in 1948 and would drive it into town... my Grandfather did have a motorcycle for many years... but they walked to church.

It sounds like a long time ago but the 1960 isn't so much of a stretch...

My brother bought an old pioneer Homestead... same family since the 1860's... had a blacksmith shop once upon a time and still hand forged hinges and such on the barns... I was expecting to find a lot of trash around the place and what was there was old rusty metal behind the 1860 barn... really very clean... best friends with John Muir the Naturalist who in many ways practiced being frugal...

 

[sixdogs]

We lived in very rural Maine for many years and digging in old trash piles was wonderful. About the only thing thrown out were old bottles and a few cans. Many bottles of mustache wax or various elixirs were common. Sometimes a small perfume bottle and on one old farm we found a double ended bottle used for drinking water on early sailing ships that crossed the Atlantic. Double ended with a roundish point so they could be stacked and stay put with the waves. This was typical of trash piles up to maybe the 1950's

During the 60's, trash piles seemed to explode with things popular in the 1960's and beyond. Beer bottles, soda cans and pop tops, cheap metal frying pans and lots of throw away society stuff. Zillions of pop tops. Cheap toys and cheap tools. Car parts, hair dryers and things for the convenience era. Kind of a shame.

 

[teejk]

We lived in very rural Maine for many years and digging in old trash piles was wonderful. About the only thing thrown out were old bottles and a few cans. Many bottles of mustache wax or various elixirs were common. Sometimes a small perfume bottle and on one old farm we found a double ended bottle used for drinking water on early sailing ships that crossed the Atlantic. Double ended with a roundish point so they could be stacked and stay put with the waves. This was typical of trash piles up to maybe the 1950's

During the 60's, trash piles seemed to explode with things popular in the 1960's and beyond. Beer bottles, soda cans and pop tops, cheap metal frying pans and lots of throw away society stuff. Zillions of pop tops. Cheap toys and cheap tools. Car parts, hair dryers and things for the convenience era. Kind of a shame.

Figure that the small farm even in the 60's might have had pigs and chickens and rabbits and cows. Any food material deemed not suitable for the soup pot went to the yard (usually the pigs...they will eat anything including people). My grandma had a "pit" that only got the bottles and cans but that was before plastics...any usable iron went into it's separate pile.

 

[ultrarunner]

One of the biggest problems I have managing low income residential rentals is trash... roughly 50% of my Section 8 rentals have excess trash which requires constant monitoring... almost zero percent non-assisted units have trash issues... in my City the Landlord must furnish trash and recycling services... renters were not paying so the city made it mandatory that the property owner pay.

Much of it just needs to be broken down and properly sorted... often, as I am doing this I think back the dairy farm and how little waste there was... it really does boggle the my mind... like my grandfather saving tin cans to organize his shop... built all of the furniture in the house with only hand tools... some from his grandfather.

The farm had milk cows and baby cows and usually a bull... plus grandmother had her egg money... grandfather had his pigs... not really any other livestock... they did have a small irrigation pond that was stock with trout... not a lot but enough to put it on Sunday table every now and then... deer would come across but they never hunted or owned a rifle... really pretty rural with a gravel road... electricity came in back in the 1930's... phone in the 80's... to this day there is no antenna reception but satellite works great for TV...

It never really hit home with me until my college friends from High School came to stay for a week and couldn't find a trash can... as there never was a conventional trash can to find...

 

[plowhog]

My best friends mother lived through the Great Depression. She once said: "we don't throw anything away; we use everything."

I asked for an example. She told me they saved the lint from the dryer screen to stuff pillows .....

 

[Industrial Toys]

Actually, The dryer lint makes a great fire starter.

My Dad's old GE fridge (From the 50s) is not self defrosting and has never had a service call. That probably makes up for any lack of efficiency.

I don't understand people and garbage. Sure, I have enough "STUFF" but if it's destined to be gone, it's out of here in very short order.