I saw a bit of a documentary about TerraCycle on the television last week. This company is awesome. They go garbage diving for what they can use, and make it into something usable, and market it. Tote bags made from empty 'Caprisun' pouches. Perpetual totes made from discarded single use plastic bags. Bird feeders made from water bottles. And much more.

I was amazed at what they were doing. It is both 'green' and very inventive.

My first thought was, "What a great idea!"

My second thought was, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Visit TerraCycle here.

I met with some friends for coffee this morning. Gas is one tenth of a cent away from being $4 a gallon. That is a 27 cent increase since I put gas in the car less than a week ago. It's a $2 increase since I started hanging out with the 'coffee crowd' two and a half years ago, and a $4 increase since I came back to the US in 2001.

Ouch.

I don't resent gas being $4 a gallon, it is nearly twice that much in the UK. What I do resent is the impact it is having on my lifestyle and the lifestyle of those near and dear to me.

I can't just whip off to the shops with my daughter now. We have to figure the cost of gas, budget everything, then decide if we can really afford to go, and if we can go, we have to decide before time where we are going to go, and what we are or are not going to spend. She has a 45 mile trip to come home from University, so instead of us seeing each other once or twice a week like we did when she was a freshman, we see each other maybe once every three weeks now.

I can't just nip to Walmart with my sister-in-law and then out for lunch on a whim (going to Walmart seems to be rather a family pastime for folks that live around here). I can't just jump in the truck and pass an enjoyable sunny day bimbling around a garden center. I can't go visit my family-out-of-town like I used to do, and I even have to watch how often I visit my closer-than-family-but-still-out-of-town friends.

My mother was born in England in 1920. I remember her telling me stories of how as a young girl she hated this particular pair of shoes, so she pulled the tongue out of one of them in the hopes of getting a new pair. Grandma pulled the tongue out of the other one and said 'now they match', and my mother said she had to wear them until her feet grew out of them, at which point Grandma cut the toes out of them so Ma's feet didn't get harmed by wearing shoes that were too tight! Ma said she remembered the days when she could have margarine on her bread, or jam, but not jam and margarine.

Rationing during WWII in England was much different than in the US. It started with bacon, ham, sugar, and butter in January 1940. Candy was the last item to be rationed, in 1942. Bread, milk, and eggs were also controlled.

My in-laws owned a 'bake house', and they baked the bread for the county. I remember Aunt Joy telling me how they dreaded doing wedding cakes during the war, because they had to use egg substitute for the icing. They would ice the cake as close to the time of the reception as they could, and then pray that the icing stayed on the cake long enough for it to be cut!

Rationing continued until June 1954, when meat was the last item that came 'off the ration'. My father-in-law says he still remembers how the 'top' off his dad's boiled egg was a weekly treat. According to a ration book he still has, a week's ration for an adult looked like this:

Milk  --  1 pints
Sugar  --  8 ounces (that is a cup, per week -- there is more sugar in most breakfast cereals!)
Butter  --  2 ounces (that is half a stick! per adult! per week! to be used in cooking, on toast, everything!)
Margarine  --  4 ounces
Cooking Fat  --  3 ounces
Cheese  --  3 ounces
Bacon  --  4 ounces
Meat  --  to the value of 1s 2d (2d had to be spent on corned beef)
Eggs  --  1 (if available!! ONE EGG per week IF AVAILABLE!), and one packed of dried eggs per month
Sweets (candy)  --  2.1 ounces
Jam  --  2 ounces
Tea  --  2 ounces

This 'converts' into something like six ounces of vegetables, a pound of potatoes, two ounces of oatmeal, an ounce of fat, and six-tenths of a pint of milk per day, supplemented either by small amounts of cheese, pulses, meat, fish, sugar, eggs and dried fruit. (1) There is a rumor that a man's weekly rations were laid on a table for the Prime Minister (Winston Churchill) to view. Churchill is said to have commented that he didn't know why people were complaining, he thought it looked a very substantial day's food!

'Digging for Victory' was the slogan of the times. It must be understood that the average 'lawn' in the United Kingdom probably measures something like 20ft x 40ft, if people are lucky enough to have a lawn at all. Many houses in the cities are terraces, as was the one in which Homer and I lived. Our left wall was next door's right wall, and our right wall was next door's left wall. We were right on the sidewalk and then on the road in the front; to the back we had a concrete yard that measured 17ft x 20ft that backed onto next door's little postage-stamp sized concrete back yard. I don't know what the people living in those houses did for the 'dig for victory' campaign; I'm assuming this is where the idea of allotments arose, so that everyone could dig their pocket handkerchief of land.

Clothing and soap were also rationed, as were cosmetics. My mother said that the American soldiers coming to the UK with their nylon pantie-hose and their lipsticks and soft-lather bars of soap were very popular, as these things were in such demand. Mom also mentioned the British guys didn't like this at all!

'Make do and mend' was another slogan that was promoted during the war. Items that were usually discarded were reinvented into something useful. Clothes were patched, socks were darned, tools were mended.

As gas tops $4 a gallon, I consider myself lucky indeed that even though I was raised in more fortunate times, I was surrounded by people that knew how to 'dig for victory' and 'make do and mend'. They remembered those skills, and were kind enough to pass them onto me (when I could be bothered to listen; now I understand what my mother used to say, about old heads on young shoulders, and youth being wasted on the young...).



I found this propaganda when I was researching something for Grey School yesterday. Who would the character in the passenger seat be today?

Margarine or jam on the bread? I'm wondering if they day is going to come when I tell Homer he can either have milk or sugar in his tea, but we can't afford both.



1) Food Rationing, Smith L. W. N., 2003 - 2006