Price increases and shortages

[Phaedra]

One funny thing here - we have almost every week half-priced banana. It's really a fruit difficult to keep in good condition. The discounter will put those no longer perfect ones immediately on the 50% shelf.

So we (and the chickens, oh, also compost bin for the peels) have so often cheap bananas.

For the 50% off meat or seafood, we usually bring back all we find and put it into the freezer right away. Besides, there is always something with 20~40% discount as the weekly special offer - we will also bring a good amount back.

 

[ducks4you]

The blackened ones make the best banana bread!
I made one yesterday. Get this: I had only restaurant 1 ounce butter to use. The bananas were almost slimy, on the bottom of my bottom refridgerator drawer. I put them into my Kitchen Aid bowl on Sunday, left them until Monday morning on the kitchen counter, added ingredients, including ground walnuts. SUPER tasty, like it "bloomed" or something.
Just sayin...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

@ducks4you,

Your story reminds me of a friend I had during my second year of college. He had a part time job at CVS, behind the photo counter.
Now, as this was the early 00's, disposable cameras were still a popular thing. It was my friends job to take apart the camera, retrieve the film roll and toss the rest in the appropriate recycle bins. Inside of each of those disposable cameras, there was a AA battery, to power the flash and other mechanical parts. They had a HUGE bin of the things to recycle.

One day, my friend (or someone else in the department) realized something, instead of just recycling the batteries, why not USE them (even after running the camera, the battery usually had at least half it's charge left). So from them on, he and everyone else would just take baggies of the batteries home with them, and every now and again he would give me a big baggie. So, for that year, I didn't have to buy ANY AA's (the only complicated part was the time I was getting on a plane to go home, and had to explain to a post 9/11 flight security officer why I was carrying a huge baggies of batteries in my backpack.)

In a similar vein, whenever the solar powered path lights we buy break (which is quite often, the things aren't really made well) I always remember to open them up and retrieve the battery from them as well, since that is a free AA rechargeable.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Pet food is getting absurd here. A 7 pound bag of Purina cat food runs about 24 dollars now. It was $13 a few weeks ago

 

[tripletfeb]

Pet food is getting absurd here. A 7 pound bag of Purina cat food runs about 24 dollars now. It was $13 a few weeks ago

Have you tried Chewy? Sometimes they are cheaper

 

[seedcorn]

I use Pet Supply plus, lot of times get premium dog food at 50% off.

 

[flowerbug]

...
In a similar vein, whenever the solar powered path lights we buy break (which is quite often, the things aren't really made well) I always remember to open them up and retrieve the battery from them as well, since that is a free AA rechargeable.

and rescue the small solar panels because if you can get enough of them together perhaps you can make a small lawn decoration or something that would be able to charge and then give off light again. and even if you don't use them they should be turned in for recycling. right now some metals are rare and with current world situation you might find that we need all those metals we can recycle.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

and rescue the small solar panels because if you can get enough of them together perhaps you can make a small lawn decoration or something that would be able to charge and then give off light again. and even if you don't use them they should be turned in for recycling. right now some metals are rare and with current world situation you might find that we need all those metals we can recycle.

I would except for 2 things. 1. I don't have any knowledge of electronics, so even if I saved the panels I wouldn't know how to wire them back in (or diagnose what part burned out in the first place.) and 2. I would be glad to turn the solar cells in for recycling, if our area RECYCLED them! I haven't yet gotten our county recycling center to take blue GLASS; I don't have a HOPE of convincing them to take solar cells. And I just don't have the ROOM to stockpile the cells indefinitely until they do.

It's a bit like the problem with the books. Our recycling center absolutely will not take book to be recycled, since they prefer they be donated to the libraries. This is all well and good, but the problem comes in when you have books the library DOESN'T WANT, or are too beat up for them to accept. The only way to get around the rule is to tear the pages out and make them not a book anymore (which goes against something deep inside me) or use them as kindling (again, that feels REALLY wrong). And even then you wind up with some garbage (since you can't recycle the spine, or the cover usually). And the recycling people aren't crazy about even that solution (on the grounds that, if the books are old, there might be lead in the ink.)

It all goes back to the same dilemma, is it environmentally good enough to reduce reuse and recycle where you can, or does true environmental responsibility obligate you to never purchase or use anything that cannot be easily recycled or composted, EVER. Is merely giving up a little convenience enough, or does truly being environmental mean putting the least needs of the environment above you very SURVIVAL, and that of you significant others? Is ALL medicine, ALL technology, ALL human advancement inherently bad for the environment, on the grounds that our lives being nasty brutish and short is how nature keeps our population down. If Earth is an organism, is humanity malignant cancer? I honestly don't know anymore.

 

[ducks4you]

As you all know, I like to recycle, and I will probably begin to recycle MORE things this year. I also want EVERYBODY here to be happy, healthy and fruitful. Please be aware that the "Green Movement" is anything BUT green.
Solar panels have a 10year life and materials in them are NOT completely recyclable:
"Other materials located within the solar cells may be more difficult to recycle. Silver and internal copper are valuable components, but panels typically contain very small amounts of these materials. Toxic metals like lead and cadmium may also be present in solar panels.Jan 11, 2022"

Solar Panel Recycling | US EPA

Find out how solar panels, a renewable energy waste, are recycled and where to take your end-of-life solar panels for recycling.

www.epa.gov

They CANNOT be tossed in a landfill.
NEITHER can you toss electric car batteries straight into a landfill:

Cars Are Going Electric. What Happens to the Used Batteries?

Used electric vehicle batteries could be the Achilles' heel of the transportation revolution—or the gold mine that makes it real.

www.wired.com

EV: Batteries

Learn about electric car batteries: how they work & how they're different to what's in your phone, to range, reliability & what happens when they wear out

www.edfenergy.com

Lithium is a toxic chemical, btw.

 

[seedcorn]

@ducks4you you are correct as the “green” movement is anything BUT healthy for the environment. To use a fuel source that is 80% efficient to make another energy source that is 80% efficient is “modern math” that does not work. What it is the rich living on the coasts in cities do not want to give up their life style to combat the pollution they create. Key one being smog from their vehicles.
Current solution is to pay farmers for their carbon credits so they can continue to pollute. Insanity at work.