When did you start recycling your trash?

I asked my retired son when he first remembered any talk about recycling. He replied that he thought it was called "hand me downs." Since he was the oldest son in our family he only received the best hand me downs from cousins. But he saw his own clothes being used on his younger brother a few years later. He then added with the wisdom of a great grandparent that it was only when we became a throw-away society that he ever heard it called recycling.

However, in the 1970s, when he was Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts in Butler, Mo., he spearheaded a used newspaper drive where the boys gathered newspapers from residents each month and loaded them on a large farm truck to sell to a factory in Kansas City.

My husband, Lester, was raised in the Ozarks of Taney County before that was a resort area. I asked him what his family did with their trash. I was sure there was no trash pick-up where they lived. Lester replied that they didn't have any trash. The only things they had that weren't still in use might have been a very few commercial cans. After the contents were used the cans were saved to patch mouse holes in the house or barn or a split place in the wooden wagon.

Years later my sister Ellen, who had married another Ozark native, became well-known for her presentations about the culture of the Ozarks. She usually started her talk with this statement. In the Ozarks they lived with this motto: Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without.

She would then demonstrate many things that were recycled within their own homes, such as woven rag rugs, made from worn out clothing, Quilts were made from outgrown clothes or left-over materials from a homemade dress or shirt. Feed sacks were popular for home uses as well as clothing. Feed companies began to sell their feed in printed sacks and many housewives asked the men or boys working in the feed store to please bring up that sack in the bottom row that matches this scrap of material.

Even people who lived in town cooperated with the businesses by placing the empty rinsed out milk bottles on the front step to be replaced by the milkmen with clean bottles of milk for the day's use. Soda bottles could be taken to the store for a few cents rebate. And pennies could actually be used to buy something such as two for a penny suckers.

Then, along came plastic. Milk was sold in plastic bottles. Drinks came in various colored or designed plastic bottles or jars. Many things were sold wrapped in plastic such as clothing ordered from Sears or Montgomery Wards. Of course the large catalogs were reused for reading and other uses in the outhouses. Candy is sold in plastic sacks often with the individual pieces wrapped in plastic inside the larger bag. At the grocery store you are asked, "Is plastic all right for you?" when you are bringing your groceries home. The paper sacks are still there but unless you specify you will get the plastic bags. The average household has replaced wax paper with Saran Wrap.

However the plastic can be recycled. The newspapers and magazines can be recycled, even the numerous gift catalogs that have replaced our favorite two big ones each year can be recycled. Cardboard boxes can be recycled. Glass can be recycled.

Nevada has a recycling center to accept most of your trash. It will save on your monthly trash pickup if you use the recycling center. It will save our nation's resources if you use the recycling center at 901 E. Locust.

There is only one drawback to Nevada's recycling Center. They wouldn't let me try to recycle my body. They referred me to the Nevada Regional Medical Center where I might have certain parts recycled, such as hips, knees, lungs, heart, eyes, etc., but they didn't think anyone would want to recycle my body. I guess I'll just have to be preserved in plastic wrap. Don't be sad. Be Glad.