I'm not sure that this post will be of interest to anybody but it popped into my head this morning.
I think that plastic bags were introduced around about the 60's but I stand corrected if I'm wrong.
I remember my Mum washing them out and using them again, they were a novelty then.
Previous to that everything was in paper bags and the carrier bags were also paper.
I remember Waitrose hung on the big brown bags for a long time after the introduction of plastic but finally gave in to plastic.
When I was at home many years ago and before the plastic bag, my Mum would save every paper bag, lovingly smoothing it out and adding it to the pile for another use.
She used to do this with the cereal bags as well as then they were a type of grease proof paper and not plastic as today.
Dad used to take his sandwiches to work every day wrapped in this greaseproof paper and then put into an Oxo tin.
I notice that these tins are fetching up to £20 now on some sites.
He wouldn't believe it if he came back now to see that his battered old tin could be worth so much. lol
Briony
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I still keep paperbags, they are useful in my shed, we do not take plastic bags, I now carry a few homemade material bags everywhere. I mutter to myself when shopping at the cost of things, often thinking my mum would have a fit at the cost of that, am I just getting older.
ReplyDeleteOh the good old days. My dad used to save the plastic bags that the bread came in. He would use those to put vegetables from his garden in to give away to family and neighbors.
ReplyDeletei think most of us had parents who saved and reused things like this. i know my mother did the same thing. back then they were valuable, because of the war they had to save what they could to reuse. we would be better off now if we still did this, save and reuse... our world is full of trash, because everything is use and toss. great idea to wrap the sandwiches, that is one thing mother did not do. we resued the bread bags and still do. we keep every bread bag and use them for picking up dog poop
ReplyDeleteI save the plastic bags from bread to put Tony's sandwiches in. They get used several times before I throw them out.I used to turn them into plarn and crochet it but there's only so much plarn a girl can use.
ReplyDeleteI remember paper grocery bags, and needing to have the food "double-bagged" so the flimsy paper wouldn't break! When plastic bags were first introduced, they seemed so much better, but of course I'm not sure we understood the environmental consequences. I'd happily go back to paper now.
ReplyDeleteLovely post. I too remember the days of brown paper bags and grease proof paper bags, school picnics - usually to see the well-dressings in Tissington (we lived in Derbyshire) egg sandwiches in the grease proof paper bag and a bottle of pop. My dad used to take his sandwiches, wrapped in grease proof paper, in a 'snap' tin. Butter and lard wrappers were saved to grease cooking tins and any paper and string from a parcels was saved in the drawer of the kitchen table:)
ReplyDeleteYou've just reminded me of the butter and lard wrappers, my Mum used them for cake tins as well. x
DeleteWhat a pity we didn't know back then the problems that plastic bags would bring. I save all the paper bags that my prescriptions come in and I save the cereal bags too it's amazing how many uses you can find for them.
ReplyDeleteThe development of plastic was probably one of THE most disasterous inventions for the environment, known to man. Couple that with the disposable-mentality of humans beings of today (unlike yesteryear, as you've explained in your post here) and it simply leaves me shaking my head. But I suppose they were trying to save trees and thus the development of plastic began... and Tupperware!! ~Andrea XOXO
ReplyDeletePlastic is a disaster and no one seems to want to reuse anything these days. Some people refuse to even eat leftovers. I save everything but there's so much of it that I may never be able to reuse, repurpose or upcycle it all.
ReplyDeleteOh Briony what a memory lane - my Mum used to wash and reuse plastic bags - I still do it. I save the paper bags too (over here they are used a lot more than I recall in UK - at the bakery in particular). And the tins...wow. My paternal Grandad was a grocer before he saved enough to buy a small farm. The tins I have in my kitchen, his tins, are testament to brands no one these days has even heard of. At least your OXO tin is still a thing. Doctor's Tea (for example) is not. Great post. xxx F
ReplyDeleteI still save paper bags as well as any plastic bags I end up with. My late (former) mother-in-law had piles of paper bags and paper that she had saved, far more than she had a hope of using. Once thing that upsets me is the amount of packaging some items have i.e individual wrapping then outer wrapping.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the packaging, I wonder when I'm going to get to the item sometimes.
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I still reuse plastic bags. I now take fabric bags to the supermarket to put my shopping in. Love the oxo tin.
ReplyDeleteI remember when there were no plastic bags, but I don't know WHAT Oxo is! What is it?
ReplyDeleteOxo is a bit like marmite or vegemite but in crumbly cubes that you put into stews etc.
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Beef stock cubes
DeleteI just barely remember when plastic bags were introduced. One of my father's sisters in the USA worked in a factory where they were produced and brought us a small box of clear bags when she came back to Canada for summer vacation. That box lasted for years and years because we hardly ever used them. I would like to mention one environmental factor folks don't realize about using paper bags - the CO2 emissions from shipping them is very high because they are heavier than plastic. Emissions from shipping, boats, etc. account for about 40% of all emissions. What we need is a truly biodegradable but strong plastic bag substitute.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy posts like this that come from bloggers' memory banks :)
Good point from the emissions point of view, when will they all get together and make this world a better place? I sometimes despair.
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I can remember making sandwiches as a child and using the waxed bread wrapper to wrap them in. It was smoothed out and cut to size.
ReplyDeletei have the bottom of an ancient oxo tin with some plants sat in it , its far older than me and came out of my dads shed
ReplyDeleteIn the 1950's, families were much better than we are today at avoiding unnecessary waste and recycling things. We have an Oxo tin just like the one you showed near the end of the blogpost.
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