Thinking Medieval: Waste is Taboo on Earth and Scarterra

In medieval Europe (and pretty much the entire planet Earth, pre-Industrial Revolution), waste was taboo. This is very much the same in Scarterra.   Scarterra has reliable magic, but Scarterran magic has few spells or effects that makes producing goods and services drastically different. 99% of all goods are still made by hand: shoes, weapons, houses, barrels, beer, sandwiches, chairs, clothing and more.  

Food Waste

  In most of Scarterra, wasting food is a severe social taboo. In dwarven lands, wasting food is a criminal offense. Dwarf salt masters are a specific profession in dwarven lands to safeguard communities food supplies.   Even on feast days, "Take all you want, but eat all you take" is a common social expecation across Scarterra.   Unlike in 21st century Earth, a Scarterran, even a rich Scarterran, is probably got going to throw away a piece of food that was dropped on the floor.   A Scarterran is unlikely to throw a way a piece of fruit because it has a small bruise on it. A Scarterran that finds mold on her cheese is just going to carefully cut the mold off and save the rest.   Scarterrans, like pre-industrial Earth humans, usuallytry to eat every part of the animals they kill for food. In this case social status applies. If we are talking about livestock belonging to a lord or lady, the ruling noble gets the best cuts of meat, the medicore cuts of the meat go the higher ranking staff and the gross but still edible parts of the animal becomes alms to the poor or fed to pigs and dogs, but it doesn't get thrown away.    

Fun Fact: The edible (but not particularly desirable) organs of deers and hogs used to be called "umbles" which evolved into "humbles". This is the origin of the term "to eat humble pie". Basically a pie made of lowly ingredients for lowly people. "Eating humble pie" as an idiom certainly applies to Scarterra as much as it does to Earth.

    Alchemical food preservation can make foods last much longer in storage but the process is so expensive it is mostly used for rich people to enjoy their favorite foods out of season or by well-equipped adventurers and soldiers to preserve food rations for long journeys. It doesn't fundamentally change the fact that food cannot be wasted.   To preserve food in Scarterra, most food is usually pickled, dried, cured, jellied, salted or otherwise preserved with old-school real world methods. Food is often carefully rationed.  

Clothes are not wasted either

  All clothes has to be made by hand. Certain materials such as rare color wools and fine silks are quite expensive but most of the time the primary cost of a garment is the labor involved. And since rare materials are usually only given to the best tailors who charge the highest fees for their services, the price of a rarified garment is still going to be largely tilted towards labor costs.     Scarterrans, even rich Scarterrans, will almost never buy a garment that they intend to wear once. This includes wedding dresses.     In modern Earth, it's a taboo for a woman who is not the bride to wear a white dress to a wedding. There are no such color taboos at most Scarterran weddings because of the tendency towards resusing garments. You can't fault someone for wearing the wrong color if they only own one nice outfit.   Hand-me-down clothes are common place, even among rich famlies. In very rich families, hand-me-down clothes are passed on to servants rather than on to younger family members.   Most clothes are fairly loose-fitting. Counter-intuitively, form-fitting clothes take more material than loose fitting clothes do and they take a bit more time to tailor. Looser fitting clothes is easier to resize and pass down to others. Unless someone's profession requires form-fitting clothes, tighter clothes are more commonly seen in the upper classes because of the increased cost of tighter clothes.     Multiple washings will wear out clothes over time. To avoid wasting clothes, Scarterrans of all social classes will take care not to get their best garments unnecessarily dirty. Stained clothes are hard to clean, even with when cleaning with magic. Work clothes are made as simply and cheaply as possible because they are not expected to last long. Most Scarterrans wear underclothes for most of the year so they don't get their nicer outer garments unnecessarily soiled and sweaty.   White clothes are generally unpopular in Scarterra and usually only seen commonly worn by aristocrats or clergy because white clothes are harder to keep clean. To an extant, there is a bias in all social classes towards clothes colors that don't show dirt easily.  

Sleeping

  Every bed in medieval Europe and in Scarterra is made by hand. It takes less labor and material to make one large bed as opposed to making several smaller beds. Most inns use a few beds as opposed to several smaller beds. Three adults to a bed is a norm and often this means sleeping with strangers.   In most peasant families, shared beds are the norm, sometimes for the whole family, sometimes one for the kids and one for adults. A peasant family could still have multiple beds if its large enough but you aren't going to see anyone with their own bed unless they are sick.   That's assuming you get a bed at all. Hamocks are relatively cheap and easy to build surprisingly comfortable. Sleeping on a straw mat on the floor is all too common as sleeping in a pile of hay or sleeping on the ground.   Wealthier families are more likely to have private beds than poorer families, but only the wealthiest families have private bedrooms or sleeping chambers. Houses are made by hand too, so extra space is expensive so people tend to be packed tightly into medieval houses. Even more so in castles.     Speaking of which.  

Not wasting anything

  In real medieval Europe, Village bakers had very large ovens for obvious reasons. After they were done for the day, they would often leave their ovens hot for a while and the baker's neighbors would borrow the baker's oven to heat their own evening meals. I see no reason why Scarterran bakers wouldn't do something similar.   In medieval Eruope, it was common for farming familes to use the same hearth fire that warmed the house in order to also smoke some pork. Even smoke isn't wasted. This certainly works for Scarterra.   Often a potters' kiln or blacksmiths' forge would be too hot to sleep directly next to, but sometimes adjacent rooms are used by others to enjoy the relative heat. I don't know if this historically accurate on Earth, but it fits for Scarterra.   Even waste isn't wasted, In the medieval Earth, once excretory products left the body they were not that person's property. Gong farmer or poop porters collected waste in towns and cities and put it to use. Urine was used in tanning and other industrial processes. With the existance of alchemy in Scarterra, Scarterra has even more industrial uses for urine.   Fecal matter, both mortal and beast, is used for fertilizer. This largely the same in Scarterra and pre-industrial Earth but the existance of Purification magic makes collecting waste a little bit less unpleasant and a little bit less unsanitary.