Wartime waste reduction remembered
11 November 2005
Reusing and recycling is not a new practice - our grandparents grew up with the ethos of ‘waste not, want not’, especially during World War II.
Sunday 13 November is Remembrance Sunday – a day on which many war survivors remember those they lost during the war as well as remembering what life was like at that time.
Recycle Western Riverside’s Community Action Project visited Mary Seacole House care home in Hammersmith & Fulham and Bramah Green Community Centre in Lambeth, to speak about rubbish reduction and asked attendees to compare the amount of waste produced today with that produced during wartime, when resources were scarce.
Lambeth resident Betty Severn, 83, said: “During the war everything had to be used as much as possible before being thrown away. Hand knitted garments were unpicked, the wool wound into balls and re-knitted. If you were lucky enough to get an old parachute, they made lovely undies. I was not lucky enough to get a parachute. However, when I first met my husband in 1948 he possessed a pair of parachute pyjamas that his mother had made.
“Old newspapers made good firelighters when plaited. Coal dust could be mixed with
tealeaves and moulded with flower pots into useable lumps. Used tealeaves soaked and drained made a liquid useful for "tanning" bare legs. Some girls did a mark down
the back to look like seams.”
Mrs Elizabeth Harbour, 91, from Hammersmith & Fulham, said: ”We reused items again and again and tried to fix anything that was broken as we couldn’t just go out and buy a replacement. Life has changed so much nowadays – people seem to throw away perfectly good things. However, people seem to be realising that reducing the amount of waste we produce is necessary if we want to protect the planet.”
Sam Jarvis, Recycle Western Riverside Campaign Manager, said: “We can learn a very valuable lesson from the ethos of “Waste not, want not” which was prevalent during WW II, and adopt some of their practices in order to reduce the amount of waste we produce today.”