One man's trash is another man's treasure

wow.. that statement couldn't be ore true here in peru.. where do i even start,..
 On wednesday in my group 3 class, i let a little girl go get water outside our classroom. the water is actually water bottles we fill up at our house from the water bottles we use...there is no running water at the SKIP office..and i would  actually venture to say there isn't running water in most of the houses where our kids live.. so anyways.. i let this girl go get water outside and she is taking a while.. so i peek my head outside to check on her... so what did i catch her doing?  stealing the tops from the water bottles...i am thinking what in the heck is she going to do with those things... of course i make her give them to me.. even though it didn't really matter if she took them.. but of course she has to learn she can't take whatever it is that she wants... so i ask her why she needs them.. i didn't really understand why but i heard the colegio which is her school.. i told her i would collect some from the house. and give them to her tomorrow.. gotta get someone to translate for me.. because i am dying to know why she is hoarding bottle tops...
     at the end of the same day while my kids were playing a bit i was going through some of the games and junk in the classroom.  there is a spider man puzzle but the box is so  old and ruined that it isn't even holding on the pieces. so what do i do? i toss the box... to which one of my kids runs to the trash and picks it up and is like.. i am taking this home with me!!! he was so excited to take an old wrinkled puzzle box home... he even put in the window to see if he could see it on the other side of the window..
    there are two ways i can interpret these situations .. one to feel sorry for the kids i work with because they get excited over what we would consider trash or two.. to feel sorry for americans because we are so wasteful and not thankful for the things we have in our life...think about how much stuff we throw away on a daily basis that could be used for something...my trash plus your trash plus the millions of people in the states..its sickening to think of what we are doing to our environment.. just sickening.. i am not suggesting we hoard bottle tops and hang trash on our walls.. but just think about all of the little things in our lives that we throw away without even thinking about it....