Recycling.

You have, possibly, seen an item fly past on the internet:
theme that ...
"We didn't have the "green thing" back in our day."
If you haven't, it's a long read but you'll find it here, if you're curious.

In the main this is SPOT ON.
In our house it was either returned, composted, the birds ate it or it got burnt (NO plastic then).
As a result the, so called, "Dustbin" would have lasted over a month, save for the fact it was emptied weekly. Even the old ashes from the fire were riddled (Sieved to them-over-there) and anything not passing through generally got re-burned.
This, of course, continued so when we first got married and the Fire Station lads cooked for themselves, or had a cook eventually we used "Cash & Carry" for a lot.
As you can see things were recycled even in the dim, distant 1970s.
We still have a few, but they get replaced as they die.