Emptying the cereal box, separating the wax paper from the cardboard before recycling, had me back in the kitchen of my childhood in a flash. Back then cold cereal was a luxury; usually corn flakes or puffed wheat and sometimes rice krispies replacing the belly filling oatmeal/porridge. The paper would be carefully smoothed out and used to wrap sandwiches, cover dishes in the fridge, or become a surface on which a jellyroll could be flipped before rolling. That single layer of wax paper would be washed and dried and carefully stored for multiple uses.    Now we have rolls of wax paper, rolls of aluminium foil, rolls of plastic wrap and parchment paper. ( that expense usually is under the heading of groceries, and we complain about the cost of eating?) The box in which the cereal had been purchased was reused as well. It became the transportation unit for dainties and casseroles. 
   Now we have an array of plastic containers to meet every shape and size of baking and food storage. If we run low on custom built units, we dip into the stash of empty takeout containers. I am so certain that I am not the only one with a hoard of plastic trays — some with lids—and yogurt/sour cream/cottage cheese containers! Honestly a few of them on standby is okay but a mass of them?
   Then there are paper products. I’m not certain when I met my first paper towel, full adulthood I’m sure. We had dish clothes/rags, floorclothes/rags and dust clothes/rags. And that is exactly what they were -rags, scraps of fabric that we used and reused. There were no Swiffer floor mops, it was down on your hands and knees with a pail and a rag, scrubbing the floors — often with the help of a brush. A spill did get cleaned up with a disposable paper towel. There was a rag/cloth for that as well. Dishes didn’t get washed with clothes, or micro fibre clothes, or long handled scrubbies. There was a piece of fabric for each one of these tasks and they got washed, dried and used again, and again. It could be the last of a cotton tee shirt, the back of a flannel pj leg— any fabric that would absorb and could be washed with scalding hot water!
   Those paper products included toilet tissue/toilet paper whichever term your family used. Once again, I acknowledge that I am eighty. I am old, I have seen a lot of changes. Je me souviens the outdoor biffy, two holer, outhouse, privy — again whatever term your family used. I remember carefully saving the newspaper and quartering the page— so much better than the catalogue paper. And then the wonderful soft green squares of paper that protected the Christmas oranges in shipping! There was no choice of two ply or three ply! Now we rely on ready to use products. There is an elite assortment of food storage containers. There is an elite variety of methods and products for washing dishes, cleaning floors and catching spills. Every one is a household expense, usually included in groceries…hmmm