By Jim Schuh

Most of us can agree that we’re wasteful, at least some of the time.

But before we condemn ourselves, I think we’ll also agree that many of us have been doing better in recent years when it comes to disposing of waste.  We were among the first in the state to recycle things like plastics, cardboard and newspaper. That may have been because of the influence of the UWSP College of Natural Resources which helped raised our awareness of the need to recycle plastics and paper before it became popular.  The Stevens Point area was among the first in the state to do so. UWSP’s influence probably helped us understand the importance of not relying on landfills for everything we no longer wanted.

In recent years, municipal officials have made recycling a great deal easier, allowing us to place all our recyclables in one bin rather separating them for collection and recycling.  So, there’s really no excuse for not being a good citizen and recycling things.

On a trip to Alabama after we began recycling here, I discovered that nobody there was recycling anything.  All their waste just got dumped into the trash, picked up by a garbage truck each week and hauled to a landfill.  That bothered me, but there wasn’t much I could do as a visitor back then. Things have improved now, and many more people are repurposing plastics, paper and cardboard these days.

But we’re still wasteful.  Look at the food we throw away.

We spent a little time on the Gulf Coast earlier this year and invited another couple with whom we’ve been friends for decades to visit us.  They’re very nice people and are quite compatible. But a few things they did bothered us.

When my wife, Martha, went with her old college classmate to the supermarket, she discovered her friend (who’s not financially flush) never looked at prices.  She just took items she liked off the shelf and put them into the shopping cart, and occasionally tossed them out if she didn’t like the taste.

Back in our condo, we saw that she rarely, if ever, finished her plate.  When dinner was over, she just piled dishes on top of what she didn’t eat.  The leftovers all got scraped into the garbage disposal.

At our house, my parents brought us up to begin with only what we could eat and then take seconds if we still were hungry.  We’re pretty sure our friends’ habits at the dinner table were similar while she grew up, but something obviously must have changed with her in the past half-century.

I’ve heard there are people who say they don’t eat leftovers and toss them out.  That never was the case at our house. Our upbringing taught us that discarding food was wasteful and even sinful.  So we had leftovers now and again. (If you’re Catholic, you might recall the nuns in elementary school citing “starving pagan babies in India and China,” as they scolded us for leaving food on our plates at lunchtime.  We tried to heed their admonitions, but since then, I’ve run into a few people who joke that those “pagan babies” wouldn’t have gotten what we didn’t finish eating anyway!)

At the supermarket, our friend spotted a box of decaffeinated coffee pods and placed them into the shopping cart.  After tasting a cup the next morning, she apparently didn’t like what she’d purchased. When she and her husband were about to leave us for home, Martha reminded her to take along her coffee pods.  She said she was going to throw them away, but Martha told her we’d take them. After they left us, we enjoyed the “throwaway” coffee, and none went to waste!

What makes our friends’ case even more problematic is that they both have trouble managing their money.  They’ve plowed through their retirement savings, and the husband has had to go back to work rather than enjoy retirement.  It’s sad to see our friends in such a predicament. But we don’t expect them to change their ways at this late date.

The next time you visit a restaurant, take a moment to watch the servers clear other tables and see how much food remains on the plates, destined for the garbage.  It’s disgraceful and disheartening to know that so much food winds up in the dumpster.

Health regulations require restaurants to dispose of patron leftovers, like rolls, but I hope the operators are saving them up for livestock consumption or something similar rather than just sending them to the garbage.

Most of us probably have too much of at least one item.  I plead guilty to that. Remember Imelda Marcos who had hundreds of pair of shoes?  A check of our closets is likely to reveal that we have a lot more clothes and shoes than we need and wear.

One of the few good things about old age is that we realize we don’t need so much “stuff” any longer and stop accumulating things that may go to waste after we’re gone.  It’s too bad we don’t realize that when we’re younger.