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Thread: Plastic plastic everywhere, challenge

  1. #11
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    Tonight at class I took an empty plastic water bottle out of the trash can and carried it ten feet to the recycling bin. People make me crazy.

    i won’t drink bottled water unless it is a medical need.

    a few weeks ago I started reading about shampoo. Which led to reading about bar shampoo. Which led to discovering that bar shampoo is basically my homemade soap with a little extra oil for moisturizing, and fragrances. (Plus sometimes stabilizers and preservatives.) So I started washing my hair with the bar soap. Plus - I don’t seem to need conditioner. Minus - over time my hair does seem to get a “thicker” feeling, which may be buildup, but it is still soft and shiny. We’ll see what happens when I start swimming in the pool again.

    i am avoiding take out food and trying to bring containers for leftovers if I know I will be eating out.

    i have been minimizing my grocery store packaging as much as possible, which has me eating better. The deli is willing to put dh lunch meat in a reusable container instead of a ziplock bag.

    i am starting an environmental club at school, and I now need that book. Must contact library....

    don’t give up flowers!

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere View Post
    During the summer we camp around in state and national parks, army corps of engineer lands and so on. There is plastic strewn everywhere. Bottles, caps, broken toys, plastic bags, wrappers. I fill a crochet bag that I rinse out everyday. On the shores of pristine lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, trails, sides of roads. I use a grabber and I am very careful, but I am appalled.

    What do do you do to fight this plastic everywhere? Besides grocery reusable bags, what can be done to get all these plastics out of the waste stream.
    Not to do with parks or wild lands, but about plastics. When I shop bulk items the store doesn't give a non plastic bag item for the bulk rice, beans and what not that I buy. There are no small paper bag or other options.

  3. #13
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    Tiam, I take glass jars with lids and they weigh them and write the weight on the Jar lid. Then the cashier subtracts the weight of the jar and lid.

    you can also take your own cloth, paper, or reused plastic bag.

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    Tiam, I take glass jars with lids and they weigh them and write the weight on the Jar lid. Then the cashier subtracts the weight of the jar and lid.

    you can also take your own cloth, paper, or reused plastic bag.

    I'm not sure Winco or Food 4 Less would do that all. They are all about volume and moving it along. Maybe at a co op I can see that.

  5. #15
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    Will they stop you from refilling their own plastic bags?

    my experience s Whole Foods And Kroger, so yeah, ymmv

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by KayLR View Post
    Bottled water drives me nuts. I know it's necessary after disasters where there is no clean water source, but our receptacles here are just crammed with them. They also litter the gutters, sidewalks, roadways....

    They make reusable ones, but people are lazy. It's too easy to simply buy another pre-filled bottle.
    Here in Oregon, there is a .10 deposit on plastic water bottles. High end commodity among the homeless.

  7. #17
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by KayLR View Post
    Bottled water drives me nuts. I know it's necessary after disasters where there is no clean water source, but our receptacles here are just crammed with them. They also litter the gutters, sidewalks, roadways....

    They make reusable ones, but people are lazy. It's too easy to simply buy another pre-filled bottle.
    And the bottled water manufacturers have done such a great job of branding water. It drives me nuts that I have a water filter in my refrigerator, but BIL will bring home 12 oz bottles of Dasani for home use because he likes the taste of it. According to him, Dasani water is better tasting than Evian or Poland Spring or any other bottled or filtered water.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  8. #18
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    We never buy bottled water and always have our own bottles.

  9. #19
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bae View Post
    Switching from plastic straws isn't going to save us.
    I am a big believer in "the starfish story" but I believe bae is correct in this; the scale of the problem multiplied among a few hundred million USians and industrial processes and marketing efforts make whatever I can save/not use a teaspoon in the ocean.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady
    a few weeks ago I started reading about shampoo. Which led to reading about bar shampoo. Which led to discovering that bar shampoo is basically my homemade soap with a little extra oil for moisturizing, and fragrances.
    Apparently I don't use much shampoo because whenever I finally empty a container and go back to the store to buy more, it's been discontinued or is no longer available in my area. So this last time I bought a shampoo bar (okay; it was substantially cheaper than many of the others, which helped). It's amazing! Easy to use, less mess than the stuff in the bottle, and it will last a good long time. I'm a convert. If the co-op no longer sells this when I go back for more, I'll look for it on-line.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  10. #20
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    i disagree that stopping the use of plastic straws won't help. The USA alone uses enough to fill 46 school buses annually.

    EVERY bit helps!
    Last edited by Gardnr; 8-17-18 at 1:06pm.

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