aged stoners Shoud go green...

YODA: Good story. I can relate to all of it, and then some.
 
I'm so old that when I was in school they hadn't invented baggies yet. Mothers wrapped sandwiches in either aluminum foil or waxed paper. And I'd better bring my brown bag home because she would use it again and again until it was falling apart. My parents were young adults during the Great Depression and wasted nothing.
 
When I got a hole in a sock my mother (and all the other mothers) darned it instead of throwing it out like today. Who even knows what "darning socks" means today?
 
When I left a room I'd better shut the light off or my father would yell at me. Didn't want to waste the electricity.
 
After they invented Ziplock bags I learned a trick from my mom that I still do today: I wash them out and keep using them until the zipper breaks.
 
People conserved back then because they didn't have the money to do otherwise. People have so much extra cash today that they have to be forced, via "Green" laws, to conserve.
 
Yadda, yaddo, Yoda, I could go on and on . . .

 

 
And you are still doing it. Whatever guy. You are a lost cause. What are you, drunk? If you want to be a moderator go to the join the team link and apply. I'm sure you'll get the job. Way to derail the thread with a piss poor attitude over petty shit.

 

The brown paper bag is also an excellent way to make fruit ripe by putting the bananas, or whatever, in and and it will ripen them up very evenly and quickly.

 

 
Ok, I've got insomnia so here we go:
 
But if you DON'T throw it out it will lay around forever cuz you'll never need it. I've got mountains of junk like that around.
 
Tricks I learned on my own. Laundry: I always do everything in cold, unless I happen to have a load of whites which happens prolly less than once in five years.
 
I've always thought laundry detergent was over priced, and most of it stunk. I made my own some years back and it worked okay but was a PITA to make. So I got to thinking, why not use dish detergent? It has grease-cutters in it and it doesn't stink. That's all you really need if you think about it -- bodily fluids are all water soluble anyway. I use "Ajax" brand for dishes and clothes, it's inexpensive  and it works great. It's a fraction of the price of laundry soap.
 
Another thing: unless I have some really greasy jeans, I run everything on the delicate cycle. All we're trying to do is remove dried bodily fluids mostly, not hard to do, and the clothes will last longer if you don't agitate them roughly on the regular cycle.
 
I don't own a clothes dryer; I hang mostly inside, sometimes outside. I learned an Eskimo trick: You can take wet clothes out when it's below zero and hang them and they will dry. They will start to freeze before you get them hung, but eventually the ice will evaporate, just like water. The colder it is out, the better it works.
 
I heat with wood and coal, but that's another story.
 
Here's a water pre-heater I made a few years ago. It the black thing that sits behind the coal/wood stove; the chimney is to the right. It's 1/8 aluminum tubing, 7" in diameter and holds about 8 gallons as I recall.
 
Water comes in the bottom and exits the top where it goes to the electric water heater. The water coming out of my basement in the winter is around 35 degrees, and this tank boosts it up by 50 degrees or so, so the electric heater doesn't have to work so much. The system works better than I figured it would.
 

 

Fizzly- I can tell one way you are losing heat! That nice window in the door, (it looks exactly like the one I have with double panes and yellow plastic trim) is letting out a lot of heat! I cover all but the center pane with bubble wrap.  Try this- tape up a bit of bubble wrap on a window and let it just sit a while. The feel the glass and then the bubble wrap! HUGE difference!
 
With the way the winter has been for you on the east half of the US, power outages are VERY possible. Having a bunch of bubble wrap stashed in a closet, can make the difference between a cold house and a freezing one!  I bubble wrap the large north-facing window in my sons' computer area every winter. They never look through it, anyway- too busy with their computers! It keeps the room much warmer.
 
And I still have my darning eggs, inherited from my mother-in-law. (I bet most of the readers are going   what the "infarction" is a "darning egg"? lol)
 
We still use rags for a lot of cleaning chores. We have boxes for recycling- even for the plastics that have no value.  Our local health food store will take paper bags for their customers to reuse- and we take ours in. Plastic bags, if not used for other purposes, are recycled and we also use cloth bags - when we remember to put them back in the van! lol
 
My son is soaking dry beans for home-made ham and beans tomorrow night. But it is with his made-from-scratch pizzas that are fantastic!  And our 3 "semi-pet" chickens recycle much of our garbage. The water from the well is OK, but about once a week we go to the headwaters park and dip some of the finest water on Earth for free!  I do hand quilting, and have a mess of county fair ribbons to show I am good at it!  My family never goes cold at night, and they sleep under works of art!
 
I am also good at taking "nothings" and creating a comfortable household. I once bought a structurally sound hide-a-bed couch that cats had scratched the corners to ribbons. It cost me $10! I went to the thrift store and spent $6 on 2 huge trash bags of 4 inch polyester "quilting squares"  (FYI- poly is lousy for making real quilts!  ). Got busy on my treadle machine (1911- still have it) and made a patchwork cover and sewed it onto the couch! So for $16 I ended up with a very unique and colorful couch that doubled as a bed when my kids had friends over.
 
We live simply, but quite well, on a low budget.
 
Granny

 

Generation Y checking in. That was funny as hell, I'll give it to you. But don't get it wrong, its not 'the green thing' we're pissed for. It's the transition from the "do your own thing" attitude, to "just say no". It's the "you do as I say under my roof", despite rebelling against their conservative parents. Its the "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" followed up by stable jobs and a nice pension. Its the inheritance of social security debts that we won't collect ourselves. I could go on, but in short: save me the bullshit. 

 

chill out gramps!

 

Man I used to love fresh book brown paper bag book covers on my school books. Drawing on them was the best thing. Well next to my Trapper Keeper, that was actually THE best thing. Heh.

 

I'm not really that old but I remember all that shit. Hilarious, and frightfully true post, Yoda. Love the paper bags as book covers, or walking to the corner store instead of driving. Time for me to go green :smokin:

 

I don't believe it.
At long last a thread that actually belongs in the Seasoned Tokers section!

 

This is stupid joke if you are trying to defend the "older generation" like my dad was when he read it to me. All this tells me is when they were kids they were taught to not be wasteful, but they didn't pass that on to the next generation. Seems like things were fine when they entered the world, and now it's a shit show.
 
I don't actually think we should blame anyone; humanity fucked up a bit. Everybody needs to do their part to be less wasteful though, and it is ridiculous to say anybody doesn't need to be as green because they were so green as kids. 

 

Are you talking about the ones that think this is a question and answer section?
Because if you are, they will never understand the reason for this section.