Waste wasn’t going to be my subject today. I wanted to speak of something much jollier, a delightful Sunday lunch with a bunch of friends….but in true spontaneous, reflexive mode I’m driven to put this ‘waste’ down on the page. It’s not pretty and you may want to stop reading right now and I wouldn’t blame you. There will be pictures, you’ve been warned. Waste is rarely a thing of beauty. The picture above is in The Maldives by the way…. Life is grim for so many people these days and many of us have stopped listening to the news or reading the papers because we’re overwhelmed by the content. I don’t want to burden you further, but it’s time to take a long, hard look at consumption and it’s by-product, there are times when there has to be a reckoning. Now is one of those times for me and possibly for you if you’re happy to read on.
I made a decision to clear out a dry store cupboard this afternoon. Saintly. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve done it before, recently, last year even. In twelve months something happened in that cupboard where tins, packets, jars and cartons acquired, without help from me, ‘out of date’ dates and multiplied in number. No explanation. I had a massive clear out last year, honest, discarded all out of date products and proudly restuffed with new ‘in date’ produce. Or so I thought.
I washed the cupboard. Emptied countless jars and tins dating back to 2013… I kid you not. My son-in-law says it was a ‘vintage year’. Washed them out in the sink with hot soapy water. I’m a responsible waste disposer. Filled two food waste bins, a glass only bin and the plastics/tins bag. All appropriately deposited in correct receptacle. I am appalled at myself at the level of waste. The countless times I have been seduced by pastes and pickles for recipes I didn’t get close to cooking. Bread making mixes for loaves not proved. Aunt Betsy’s crumble mix that was never sprinkled over the tinned apple slices (also out of date 2017) in the emergency apple crumble that would show I can always be relied on to produce a delicious pudding at the drop of a hat for unexpected visitors who stay for lunch. This just doesn’t happen, other than in my imagination.
Well “no more” I say. And then I noticed that in my clearing out process, I’d blocked the drain. On one of my innumerable trips to the bins at the bottom of the garden, I spotted the turgid greasy brown water sitting in the drain and, honestly at that moment, could have wept. However I refuse to be broken. A quick search under the sink, where all cleaning materials are stored and I found a large bottle of drain unblock. Before pouring ugly chemicals down, it seemed important and necessary to plunge my hand into said disgusting drain to rummage and dislodge. It seemed a fitting punishment for prior crimes of over consumption, and careless sink management. We have a large black rubber glove for this kind of task, kept outside by the drain, not the first time our drain has blocked. BB sorted it last time and I was roundly told off for drain abuse. I protested of course, there are, after all, two of us using the kitchen sink….but it was my poor porridge pot prophylaxis that caused the block, of course. I don’t wash the porridge pot any more.
I got on with the business of extraction. Autumn leaves were culprits, glued together with who knows what and I heaved them out into an old zinc bucket while my stomach quietly heaved at the fetid pong. No plant based organic drain cleaner would sort this out, I had only one choice, to apply the Mr. Muscle. One whole bottle and ten minutes later I flushed a kettle full of hot water down the drain and heard encouraging gurgles from the sink. I looked outside and found a frothy turgid mess in the drain. The same brown and greasy mess but with white bubbles on the surface.
I think rods may need to be sourced and applied. This is not really my area of expertise, but I think we have our own set of rods somewhere and they have been used before. A cup of tea was much needed to settle my queasy stomach and a sit down to pour out the guilt into your waiting ears. I am genuinely ashamed at the stuff I’d crammed on to that deep dark shelf and have now thrown away. I watch a TV chef cooking up a storm and endorsing this and that as a brilliant store cupboard necessity or see an Instagram post from Thomasina Miers (who I love and she would despise this wastefulness) and next time I’m shopping, into the basket goes harissa paste, chipotle, Lebanese pickled lemons, Bonne Maman cherry compote, every kind of mustard, tinned goose fat and vacuum packed chestnuts. I aspire to be the person who uses these wonderful things, creatively cooking and being interesting because of it and then the reality is sausage and mash, if BB has his way it will be served with baked beans. I do cook other things…. Nigella and Nigel Slater are my mentors. All the ‘Nigels’.
Seriously though this was one shelf. There are others and the daunting task of stripping them out lies before me. Did I mention that the white vinegar bottle fell out of the cupboard, the lid broke and the contents spilled out over the floor? Or that in shaking out the goop from a plum sauce bottle, a rogue blob shot out sideways, missed the bucket and caught the side of my new off-white retro trainers with pale grey suede bits. Or that a sliver of comfort chocolate (essential for my mental health) slipped beneath my apron and melted onto my cream tee shirt….There were multiple disasters in my mission to spring clean that cupboard. Is the Universe meting out it’s own karmic revenge for past consumeristic greed….? That cupboard has become my nemesis and all this after a morning visit to the dentist’s chair where I am informed I have a gumboil. Innocuous you might think, certainly not. My Google search reveals it could be life threatening if left untreated. I was warned not to google…. When I got up this morning I trotted happily and unwarily into my day. Meditation, yoga, breakfast, all good. Dentist. Bam! Turned on a sixpence into the mare of all days. I have to decide on whether to extract the tooth £87 and possible single tooth denture or have deep root debride work (I shudder at the thought) and a crown, £568 plus plus plus, painful on every count. Yet even with these thoughts ruminating in my brain, I nobly don apron and rubber gloves for a debridement of my own. Which has led to all manner of catastrophe throughout the afternoon.
What have I learned? Well future shopping lists will go something like this: baked beans, tinned tomatoes, tomato ketchup. I will not aspire to be Nigella or Nigel. I will not wear new trainers when undertaking gruesome jobs. I plan never to use the sink again… and must add to shopping list several large bottles of Mr Muscle unblock. I must stick with morning routine but for the whole 24 hours and mouthwash with salt water at least twice a day for the rest of my life - which won’t be long if I have another day like Tuesday. More importantly, waste is a real problem, we need to take it seriously. I need to take it seriously.
It’s Wednesday….here we go again. Stepping bravely into whatever it holds. My lovely prayer buddy sent me some wonderful prayer declarations this morning - one of which is ‘nothing is against me’. I’m deep listening. What’s that I hear? Is God having a little chuckle in His heaven? A guffaw more like. Thank you God for the unpredictable nature of life. Laughing with you. How’s your week going? Leave your cupboards well alone, take it from one who knows. Till the next time…
A
Dear Alice, this did make me smile. I'm sure many people can relate to your experience but perhaps not so many have gone as far as unblocking an outside drain. Next step we all have to take is to stop buying so much stuff other than foodstuffs. I think of all the kitchen gadgets Mum had, lined up on kitchen shelves, which were never used but could have been useful for someone who wanted to study dust.
Waste not, want not …. Says it all really.
Maybe we should bring back this slogan that if I was told once I was told a thousand times by my Grandparents as a child.
Resonates loudly in our world of overconsumption and horrific waste.