Y2k arrives, and, among other problems, the garbage collection stops.

You have all that food stored away, wrapped up in some sort of package. If garbage/trash collection stops, what will you do with the packaging after you unwrap and eat the food?

Cans, bottles, foil, and saran wrap have a tendency to accumulate, and they don't "biodegrade" overnight. If you don't believe that, visit your local landfill, and see for yourself.

However, they do accumulate flies, and vermin.

-- LP (soldog@hotmail.com), May 29, 1999

Answers

* * * 19990529 Saturday

There'll be plenty of ( Mad Max? ) "leisure"(?) time for:

. Cleaning and storing opened cans/lids for future recycling

. Using combustibles ( non-toxic: i.e., labels, boxes, etc. ) for great kindling

. Storing cleaned toxic materials ( i.e., bottles, foil, plastic wraps, etc. ) for recycling

This should give folks something to do between all those hours of survival scrounging and scavanging.

The Good News:

These waste products will be "limited" by cache store; no more production pre/post-12/31/99. *wink*

... just thinkin' ...

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@hotmail.com), May 29, 1999.

LP, this is why you need to store lots of water, have a water filter, and some sort of water collecting system. If you live in an arid part of the country or if there's a drought, well, I guess that means problems.

Basically, you rinse out the cans and plastic bottles and stand on them to flatten, then you store them in garbage bags (if it looks like only a relatively minor interruption in service) or you bury them. One hopes you can rinse out the glass containers and reuse them, which is why I'm using mason jars (and have lots of lids and rings stored).

Foil: When it first came out my mother would wash what she used, fold it carefully and reuse it till it fell apart. It flattens easily for disposal. Plastic bags? If you've used Ziplocks, these too can be reused. Avoid plastic wrap where possible, very difficult to reuse.

Garbage goes in a compost heap. Surround and cover with chicken wire to discourage varmints.

Come to think of it, I do most of this stuff now. Except I put out the cans and some jars for municipal recycling.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), May 29, 1999.

Right on Old Git. I have two cats who have a potty box and it gets cleaned morning and night and goes in a plastic bag from the grocery store. Thus we have been saving them for y2k. I have garbage bags of them. Now when I go to the store I ask for paper bags. I predate paper towels, and when I was a little girl my mother used brown paper bags to drain fried foods of the grease, like french fries, I have boxes and boxes of paper towels stored out in the shop along with TP, But hubby can't seem to live without paper towels and we go through a roll every two days. So, if Y2k is TEOWAKI he is going to have to change his ways. All my cat food tins, one a day as I feed dried food too, go to one or the other neighbors for "tuna can candles". Regular store bought cans get washed and squashed and go to the recycle bin. Paper, hay string, etc goes into the burn barrel, organic stuff goes into the compost pile, that which the chickens, rabbits and parrots don't eat,... and the rest goes to the landfill. We will have a lot less garbage if things get tough...some of those in the north may be using those cereal boxes for insulation under the mattresses. If we must we will dig a deep hole and bury what needs to be buried. One thing that fills my garbage can is Junk Mail and I look forward to it being severly impacted by y2k.

Got lots of matches and a burn barrel? Chickens? They are the best composters that money can buy.

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), May 29, 1999.

Old Git,

Your suggestions about the cans are what I've done in the past, but don't plan on doing much this time. The reason being is first, I don't plan on having a lot of commercially canned food (too heavy), and second, cans show up fine on metal detectors. Bury enough of them in the proper way and you can give enough fits to those who would search your area looking for buried "contraband" that they would have to give up before finding anything other than my old trash.

Glass has several defensive uses I won't go into here...no sense in giving too much away.

Tin foil also has many uses, including sleeping bag liners for those nights where you find the temperature drops below the bag's rating. Sort of like an expedient "space blanket." It's also good for lining the inside of cardboard boxes for use as windscreens, and reflectors for oil/kerosene lamps. You get more light out of the typical lamp that way, which means that you can turn the wick down to save fuel.

My main reason for asking my question was to see if anyone else had thought of it, and how they had planned to deal with it.

Thanks for your input.

-- LP (soldog@hotmail.com), May 29, 1999.

Cans can also be used in the garden...cut open both ends. Bury them two inches deep around small sprouting plants. This discourages cutworms and some others (can't remember right now). Or use the cardboard roll at the center of TP rolls.

While cleaning my attic I have found incredible stashes of old aluminum plates from TV dinners, plastic of all kinds, bottles, jars, old jam glasses, wire, metal and wood of all shapes and sizes. My husbands parents were incredible savers...they were young adults during the depression and what they learned never left them.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), May 29, 1999.

Another really big saver item: buttons! never throw any item of clothing away no matter how old and tattered without first relieving it of its buttons.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), May 29, 1999.

Hi, Hillary:

I was away for weeks making Y2K preparations. When I revisited Ed Yourdon's site, I noticed the archive link at the bottom of the page and some strange graphic link positioned at the bottom of every posting. I wondered why this was so. I guess I had been away from this forum for too long. Then I read about Ed Yourdon's deliberate departure. My timing is not good.

Today at work I thought about the problem of recyling tin cans from opened foods. If the garbage collectors have no fuel to power their trash collecting vehicles, then what is one to do about the accumulation of opened cans? I save the best ones for storage now, but some are no good, inferior specimens rank with poor manufacture. I can easily imagine vast garbage heaps with crawling creatures feasting upon the contents during dusk and night. Then the dogs would fight over scraps in the early morning. Who could sleep with the constant yelping?

When the stock market collapses, I might take refuge at my mother's country homestead. Although she is a diehard stubborn DGI, when the massive panic happens, she'll wake up and remember all of my warnings.

Steven

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), May 29, 1999.