Little wooden boxes, too many to keep
Smack in the middle of the week, a holiday. A Class One, close all the stores and reduce the city to a shadow of its activity level sort of holiday. In passing, due to the odd rules of government, we get another one in the middle of next week, albeit not so restrictive against commerce. For today, at least, the weather is superb. All warmed up and no place to go, although the pool is now clean; aseptic in comparison with a month ago.
The basement was cooler than other areas of the house, so I unfolded the trusty Leatherman tool and decided to reduce a pile of African orange crates to their rudest state. We follow the Pauling regime in mid-winter, absorbing large quantities of Vitamin C from the Moroccan clementines that are available in local supermarkets. Five pounds of juice and peeling, carefully packaged for trans-Atlantic travel in wooden boxes.
Here’s the thing. Wood is expensive, if I use the local hardware store as a price point. These boxes are assembled, by hand, from carefully sawn and shaped pieces of balsa plywood. The minimum of nine pieces of wood (although the occasional side piece made from Masonite makes me wonder about what happened on that assembly line) are stapled and painted with gaudy colour designs, and then wrapped in a plastic netting to assure that the cargo stays put.
Using my dendrochronology training (in my day, we studied everything), I can tell that the trees must grow quickly and to a reasonable size before being sawn and transformed into little wooden boxes. Not at all like the cheap cardboard cartons used in Florida orchards. Is there a forestry industry in northern Africa? Is wood cheaper than citrus fruit? Have they not heard of the wonder of recyclable plastics there? You see, this need to reduce my pile of crates comes from a rule by the local civil authorities that have rejected my crates in the blue box. Either I reduce and reuse, or I buy a wood stove.
