Plastic plastic everywhere, challenge

[Teacher Terry]

So after some research it appears not even all paper is being recycled anymore. Mostly just cans and glass. The point is not what is being accepted but what the recycling company is doing with it. So we feel good filling our recycling bin and it’s ending up in a landfill anyway.

[Chicken lady]

Yes Teacher Terry, the point is NOT to fill the recycling bin. The point is to have as little trash OR recycling as possible. But still, opt for recyclables over trash, and put the recyclables in the recycling as accurately as possible. 9% is still better than none.

i don’t have trash service, so I take my trash back to the grocery store and throw it in the can next to the carts. Usually in a large chip bag. Because dh isn’t going to give up bagged chips. I also recycle appropriate plastic bags in their bag collection. I drop my recycling off about once a month in the municipality where I work. They take 1% of my paycheck for “services” so I feel entitled to use some.

i am lucky that I have a large garden and can actually use plain cardboard boxes for mulch underlayment. I can burn wax coated paper - often in the winter I use a piece or two to start the wood stove. I have an artsy/crafty reuse store that will accept many items and is actively soliciting jar lids and bottle caps to be turned into benches.

bottled water drives me crazy. I will only drink it when medically necessary. Even if you have to buy packaged water for some reason - distilled water in gallons is cheaper and healthier.

i try to shop with an eye to what will happen to the thing when I am done with it. But some days I get so overwhelmed I can’t even buy something.

[Teacher Terry]

We don’t buy bottled water. We save plastic soda bottles and fill with water to take with us. My husband drinks a ton of soda, my milk is in plastic as are many other things. I was really upset when my son gave me the news. I won’t quit recycling but it’s discouraging.

[Tradd]

I only buy bottled water for when I’m diving at the quarry. No potable water on site.

I use gallons of distilled at home for my Neti pot.

[dado potato]

Perhaps recycling is a possibility. I have 5 pieces of outdoor furniture made from recycled milk jugs, and when I need to replace decking I can use Trex instead of wood lumber.

I am very happy with the durability and color-fastness of my Trex outdoor furniture. (It wasn't the cheapest option, obviously.)

There is a brand of carpet, ( "Karastan" maybe?) made from recycled plastic. I have seen pictures of these carpets that look quite aesthetically pleasing. It may be less of a pleasure to walk barefoot on the carpets, I just don't know.

It is an immense problem (and opportunity) to design/produce/market useful and beautiful goods that are made with recycled plastic.

[dado potato]

P. S. For 9 years and counting, I have been using 2 bins to compost kitchen and yard waste. These bins were made of recycled plastic.

[kib]

Idea: Crate Credit. What if Amazon offered durable recycled / reusable packaging containers with a deposit, like my milk bottles, and when they drop off a package you give them back the old crate from the last delivery, for credit? Granted the stuff inside the package would still contain waste, but at least that outer shell could keep on going and going ... Reusing was always more eco-efficient than recycling anyway; if recycling is becoming obsolete, surely we need to shift to manufactured goods that aren't designed to be immediately disposable. If we insist on buying new junk every day, at least we could stop buying new packaging for it!

[iris lilies]

I hate this time of year For all of the plastic. At the grocery store I wanted to buy a bottle of Jamison Iris Whiskey. . The only bottles they had were special holiday edition that had some kind of sports team plastic crap attached to the bottle. So hey Jamison, I didn’t buy your product. I don’t want a forced piece of junk. The other choice the store had was Glen Levitt scotch whiskey, but DH was with me and he will bitch and moan if I spend $53 on a bottle of Scotch.

So I left the grocery store Scotch-less.

[SteveinMN]

So hey Jamison, I didn’t buy your product. I don’t want a forced piece of junk. The other choice the store had was Glen Levitt scotch whiskey, but DH was with me and he will bitch and moan if I spend $53 on a bottle of Scotch.

Okay, here in the north we can't buy anything stronger than 3.2 beer in a grocery store, so being able to buy distilled spirits in the same store that sells cake mixes and fresh meat is an order-of-magnitude advance in civilization. But just two choices of whiskey? Was this a Kwik-E-Mart? And may I introduce you to this concoction called bourbon?

[JaneV2.0]

Okay, here in the north we can't buy anything stronger than 3.2 beer in a grocery store, so being able to buy distilled spirits in the same store that sells cake mixes and fresh meat is an order-of-magnitude advance in civilization. But just two choices of whiskey? Was this a Kwik-E-Mart? And may I introduce you to this concoction called bourbon?

Washington--coerced by Costco money--now sells grocery store booze. I used to occasionally go to the state liquor store and look around, maybe buy brandy and a few one-serving bottles for cooking or to taste. I don't think I've bought anything since the law changed. At Safeway, if you stand in front of their locked liquor display, you'll soon hear "Customer service in the liquor department (substance abuse, aisle 6 )" over the loudspeaker, and then you wait for some callow kid to show up with the keys. Not to mention the price (last I looked) has gone way up, and a lot of decently-paid state jobs are no more. I'll probably restock some day, but what an unpleasant experience it's become.