Meghan Cox Gurdon: It’s not easy peeling green

Last night, I was tidying up the kitchen after the depredation of my children when I caught myself behaving like a member of the dust-bowl Joad family — or like some other quaint remnant from that long-ago time when Americans husbanded their resources, hoarded their scraps and sought to make a use of every discarded thing.

There I was, scooping sheaves of graded homework across the countertop and into the garbage without a qualm. Handfuls of free-range, hormone-free eggshells went in with them, plus rice and sauce scraped from innumerable dishes. Out went a handful of colored markers that had long since lost their caps and dried out. And then I encountered a little heap of fresh banana peels.