"Waste not what not"

This is what my supervisor David told us (Yan and me) on our first day when we were synthesizing our nanoparticles and a tiny bit was left in the vial. We definitely had to get that out, even when it was difficult or impossible (impossible does not exist in his vocabulary, I like that). "Waste not what not". Samples are precious, you have to use everything. Great, this really fits my way of thinking!
On the contrary and really doesn't fit my way of thinking, we do waste all our consumables - hence the name (pipet tips, vials, small vials, bigger vials, more vials, tubes, tiny tubes, big tubes, gloves, ..). Where we washed that particular vial in Utrecht, here they don't even think about reusing it (waste of time - okay, maybe this is still in the 'waste not what not' range). I still have to get used to it. Like when a certain protocol doesn't work, don't try around too much, just get new fresh chemicals (even when the old ones are inorganic and not perishable). Or when we made a few cute pictures of our nanoparticles with the transmission electron microscope, just burn them to a CD, don't wait until you have enough to fill the whole CD.

In the cafeteria in the hospital you have these cardboard take away boxes, they're just used once (I always try to use it until it falls apart). There are also these kind of plastic plates for salads and stuff - only used once.
However, (and I really like this) in restaurants - no matter how luxurious - you can always get a doggy bag when you cannot finish your meal. Waste not what not, don't throw away your food. And now I have a nice lunch tomorrow!

NYC does have a recycling program, but it is quite different from what I am used to: all glassware and other packaging materials go in one trash bin. Most people don't make their stuff flat, so every week there are huge piles on the streets for the garbage men to pick up. Paper and cardboard is collected separately, I do understand that part!
But what is probably wasted the most here in NYC is warmth. When I arrived in the hostel six weeks ago, my room was like 28 C. We couldn't switch it off, so we opened the window (and of course the radiator is just underneath, you know how that goes). And it seems this was not a stand alone incident, I hear often people (mostly Dutch or European) complaining about their warm apartments. Thus much energy is thrown away, it almost hurts. It is a very old system which is driven by steam, and cannot easily be changed, that's what they told me.

Please, waste not what not!