Saving The Earth--With Papersticks

Waste not, want not. We didn't think about recycling when I was growing up. We just did it. My mother would as soon have sold her first-born [me] to the tinkers as toss a glass jamjar in the rubbish. They were saved and stored on shelves in the shed out back until she got a notion to make jam or marmalade.

The shed was also where we collected waste paper, in a hemp sack, for the monthly Diocesan Collection. But many of our newspapers, at least in winter time, never reached the shed. We used them to make paper sticks for starting the fire.

Once a week, our dad would gather a pile of old newspapers, and recruit us to help, since we had no distractions such as video games, ipods, dvds or computers. Dad was, at least in his own opinion, the fastest and best paper stick maker in the land. And we all aspired to be as good as, or better, than he was. He had the complacent smile and nimble fingers of a master. The air crackled with competitive tension and the rattle of paper as we fashioned the sticks, with varying degrees of skill. Looking back, I can see now, that making us want to be better at it than he was, was his clever way of getting a bigger pile of paper sticks with a smaller outlay of energy! I don’t believe I ever took his crown away....

It was no good if you rolled the paper too tight or too loose. You had to get it just right. If you didn't fold it exactly in half, you'd run out of paper on one side. And if your last few twists weren't neat and tight, so that when you tucked in the last piece it was snug and secure, the whole thing would come undone.

Our paper sticks were usually made from the Irish Independent, the Limerick Leader or the Cork Examiner. If you were in the know, that would tell you a lot about my parents' politics, and religion--Catholic, of course. We rarely got the Irish Press, and the Irish Times only occasionally, when Dad was feeling especially hoighty-toighty and intellectual. Besides, everyone knew that the Times was only for Protestants! I remember thinking how exotic it must be to be Protestant, one of the Five Percent, and breathe such rarefied air....

Our paper sticks looked like this:


Five or six of them were lined up on the clean grate in the fireplace. Lumps of coal were placed neatly on top. When it was time to light the fire, a match was put to the paper sticks, and as they slowly burned, the coal would catch, and soon there’d be a lovely warm fire, crackling away. Setting the fire was a specialized task, one I was, thankfully, not expected to do! I was glad someone knew how to do it though, since curling up by the fire with a good book was my idea of bliss.

We don't use paper sticks over here, though they'd probably be great for starting the barbecue....But I still recycle newspapers, and junk mail, and even the little paper tags from tea bags! Cereal boxes and all the excessive paper and cardboard wrapping that comes with our food these days also finds it's way to the recycling bin... And, whenever possible, I buy products made from recycled paper. If my head is in the clouds and I forget to bring my cloth bags to the store, I opt for paper rather than plastic, and reuse the bags in the kitchen garbage can.

Waste not, want not........Our parents had it right. We have too much and we take it all for granted. If we were all just a little bit more frugal, as our parents were from necessity, we could reduce pollution, conserve natural resources and leave some of the wonder and beauty of the world for our children and our children's' children to enjoy.