I remember the first time that I ate out of a garbage can. đŻ It was in the late 1940s, and Kelloggâs was trying a new marketing scheme.
Their cereals came in small and large boxes, but they began offering them in tiny, serving-size boxes. The equivalent of a large box would get you 10 or 12 of these, all wrapped together. The fronts had an H-shaped perforation. You peeled back the two cardboard wings, and did the same with the waxed-paper liner inside. You poured milk right into the box, and ate the cereal right from it.
This was one of the first âlabor-saving devices.â Working mothers didnât have bowls to wash. The extra labor and packaging material made them more expensive, so they didnât do well in my cheap, dirt-poor little town.
Kelloggâs produced them in every flavor that they made. They also made a âVariety Packâ, with some of each. The tiny, independent grocery carried them for a while. It sat beside a laneway to another street. There was a garbage pail right beside â not a dumpster â nobody could afford to throw that much away. Somehow, one of the sampler packs came apart. Unable to sell it, the grocer just gathered the pieces up, and dropped it into the garbage pail beside his building.
Finally dry from his immersion in the Niagara River, yours truly was busy skulking and gallivanting around town. I approached the store by the alley, from the next street. I stopped to look in the garbage pail, and couldnât believe it. Someone was throwing perfectly good food away. There were little boxes of Kelloggâs Corn Flakes, Vim, Rice Krispies, All Bran, Shredded Wheat, Bran Flakes â several types that Iâd like to try, but couldnât afford to purchase a whole big (or small) box, in case I didnât like them.
They were all âGood-For-Youâ cerealsâŠ. and all that Bran! You wouldnât be just regular â more like steady. I donât remember any Sugar Corn Pops, or Sugar Smacks, or Sugar Anything. Sugar hadnât been invented yet â or perhaps it wasnât off wartime rationing. Thatâs why old people like me are sour and bitter. They had nothing sugary to sweeten them up.
The pail was relatively new and clean. The bulk package cardboard was pristine. The small inner packs touched only it. I dug out most of the tiny boxes â as many as my little arms could carry, and quickly headed for home with them. I told my Mother that âsomeone was throwing them away,â without mentioning the garbage can, and had a bowel-cleansing assortment of breakfasts for almost two weeks.
Even today, there are individuals and groups â and not just homeless people â who regularly comb supermarket dumpsters for food deemed unsalable â packaged meats, cheeses, bread products, even fruit and vegetables, past their âBest Beforeâ dates. They eat it themselves, or donate it to food banks, to be used today. It saves money, and reduces the amount going to landfill sites.
The son works a midnight shift. He leaves work at 7:30 AM, and reaches the nearby supermarket just as it opens at 8:00, to purchase a discount copy of the Toronto Sun newspaper. He has learned to look at the other discount racks. Stock that will be thrown out tomorrow, is on sale today, for 20%, 30% – 50% off. He often comes home with half-price ground beef, steaks, roasts, bread, and buns. What doesnât become his 9:00 AM âmidnight snacksâ, or goes into his little apartment-sized freezer, often makes its way into the household larder.
Reduce Reuse Recycle! Waste not â Want not. Do you do anything like this, to aid your economy, and the Ecology?
