By Steve Davies, Healthy Planet Columnist
So, it was shortly after the holidays last year that I shared the story Reuse, Reduce and Recycle
with everyone here about how I started going through some of the gifts and toys my kids had received over the last several years at Christmas and how I was able to find new homes for many of them courtesy of the website Buy Nothing St. Louis County.
Well, now I have a story about my mom and how she has started doing the same thing this year but this time, with a different group, Trash Nothing. For my mom it was because the last of her grandkids here in Kirkwood, my youngest, just graduated from Kirkwood High School.
My mom you see was a preschool/early childhood teacher for eighteen years and between that and her six grandkids, she has collected a lot of teaching materials over that time. Well, now she felt it was time to part with many of those things and so who did she ask to help her but, me of course.
Now at first, she gave me a huge box of a variety of items, from spelling cards to drawing supplies to toy clocks to a variety of games. What I did in the beginning was offer them in large groups but, unfortunately, I had few responses.
So, after getting a second round of some more stuff from my mom, I decided to offer them individually and lo and behold, between someone who was homeschooling and a parent with two young kids, I was able to find new homes for almost all of those things of the course of the last week or two.
Of course, I still have a couple of items left from my mom and a few of my kid’s old toys, here at our house but, despite that, it feels really good to find new homes for all those things. That said, I have a feeling that she has more. Between her time as a teacher and many of my dad’s things she still has as he passed away back in 1994, I know it can be hard for her to go through all that stuff. One step at a time.
For questions or comments about recycling email me at thprecycler@yahoo.com