On finding new purposes for “trash”

(Image by Stuart Miles/FreeRangeStock.com)

The other day as I was cooking dinner, I came to the end of a roll of aluminum foil. I teasing tapped my daughter on her head with the cardboard tube that remained, then started to throw it in the trash.

“Can I have that?” my daughter asked. “I can use it to make something.”

“Sure,” I said, and handed it over.

My daughter took the tube and headed off to her bedroom. Later, she reappeared, using the tube as a pole that held up one of her drawings like a flag.

This is just one of the many reasons I am often in awe of my daughter. She always can often see the possibilities in an item I considered to be trash. She stops me from throwing something away at least once a month. Most of the time, it’s a box or something like those cardboard canisters that oatmeal comes in. She’ll turn it into a home for her dolls, or a fence for her toy horse, and, ocassionally, something as simple as a stick for holding up a drawing.

Most days, I toss things in the trash without giving it much thought, just because that’s what I’ve always done. But I want to be more like her and see the potential within my “trash” and maybe find ways to give it a new life.