Emergency Preparedness and Self-Reliant Living: Saving Your Containers for Transformation:

Monday, February 22, 2010

Saving Your Containers for Transformation:

When I was at the used book sale recently, I found these two great books:

I don't know if they are still in print, but they were written in the late 90's, and are published by Leisure Arts. Here is the website to that company: http://www.leisurearts.com/default.aspx

These books fit in wonderfully with my recycling plans. I have have been recycling good containers: things like wine bottles, spaghetti sauce jars and even plastic juice bottles. I am not putting these items outside next to the garbage can though, oh no. I am reusing them ... for food storage and/or art projects. I put my recyclables that I want to keep in a tote, after they are all cleaned up:

The books above help with the art projects. They even show you how to make "kitchen angels" out of liter plastic pop bottles. I didn't make her, but when I do make one, I'll show you how I did it:

I plan on using the wine bottles for homemade syrups and homemade kaluah. The plastic juice bottles, and the spaghetti sauce jars will be filled with rice and beans at our house. If I had more freezer storage, I would fill them with water and to freeze and use in the ice chest during the summer.

A small bag of beans and peas will fit perfectly into a small spaghetti jar, with room for the bag they came in. I like to keep those, because they give you instructions and recipes.

I also save good boxes, large and small. The larger ones I use for mailing gifts at Christmastime. The smaller ones, I use for storage or gift wrapping. These books have inspired me to cover my favorite boxes in fabric and then use them as decorative storage.

So many ideas, so little time to get everything done that I want to do!

2 comments:

DavidFebruary 22, 2010 at 6:24 PM
Be prepared to run out of toilet paper; This covers all the bases = saves you money, helps the environment, helps your health, makes you feel better, it's so easy to do and it costs less than $50.00; Save money and the Earth and be clean at the same time! Add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all your bathrooms. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off” Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! Don’t worry, you can still leave some out for guests and can even make it the soft stuff without feeling guilty. It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. As for water use a drought is always a concern and must be dealt with prudently but remember the water use of industrial users far exceeds the water use of household users and in the case of toilet paper manufacture it is huge. The pollution and significant power use from that manufacturing process also contributes to global warming so switching to a hand bidet sprayer and lowering your toilet paper use is very green in multiple ways.
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Oregon Gifts of Comfort and JoyFebruary 24, 2010 at 2:07 PM
Hi David,

Thank you for your comment!

Kathy
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Tips:

* When a wind or snow storm is on the way and you live in the country, fill up the bathtub with water. That way, you can fill up a bucket with water and use it to flush the toilet if the electricity goes out and the pump quits working. You can also use the water from your hot tub if you have one.

* Keep an old phone (with a cord) around the house to use in case the power goes out - for when your cordless phone will not work. For other reasons, your cell phone may not work either in case of a disaster. Make sure to have a list of phone numbers written down (in addition to having them stored on speed dials).

* Stock up! Some people strive for 3 days worth of food and water, others 3 months, others 2 years. Remember, you may be asked to share with others, so start preparing now.

* Have kerosene oil lamps and lamp oil on hand. They look pretty in the home, and give good lighting when the power goes out.

* Make cheap and easy lanterns by filling a canning jar halfway up with sand and placing an emergency candle in it. You can put a lid on it for easy storage in the cupboard until it is needed.

* Keep a couple of those long lighters (used for BBQ's) in your home for lighting candles and lanterns.

* Have the number of the electric company in an easy location. Call as soon as your power goes out (using your old phone or your cell phone)... don't assume that somebody else already has. I have been the first one to call several times, and after one really bad windstorm I had to call again the next day because they thought that everybody had been taken care of, but we were not.

* If you experience a "brown-out", where the lights dim, unplug your refrigerator and freezer! We had the motor burn out of our fridge one time due to a brown-out and had to buy a whole new fridge.

* Learn about cooking with cast iron dutch ovens and how to use charcoal as a heat sorce for them. There is a link on the bottom of this page with information about this.

* Buy boxed soy and rice milk to have with your extra food supplies. They stay good for quite a while and you are not stuck with only powdered milk.

* If you have a baby in diapers, have a several dozen cloth
diapers on hand, along with diaper pins, plastic pants or diaper wraps. If you can't go to the store to buy more disposables, you can always wash and reuse the cloth ones.

* Just think about what your grandparents or great-grandparents must have done or used when thinking about emergency preparedness ... make it fun when it is not an emergency. Get creative! Share your ideas with friends, and email them to me so that I can put them on here. Thanks!