View Full Version : Wasteful practices that bug you
Sorry.. a bit of a rant thread. First let me make it clear that I do waste things. So this is not about being holier-than-thou with regard to waste in general. I think you have to pick your poison when you indulge in wasteful practices.
However, there are some wasteful practices that just bug me, and I'm wondering if you guys see wasteful things that you see other people do that drive you crazy, too?
This post is inspired by something that my DIL/DS did this morning. They are doing their Saturday chores in my house, which means they are helping to clean it, which is awesome of course! But they have a tendency to throw away the vacuum bag way too soon, just because it might be "stale." My vacuum bags are for my Miele vacuum, and they are really, really high quality bags--they're almost like engineered diapers. They're made of cloth, and frankly, I often do what I can to reuse them (sometimes I can't--it's hard to get the stuff out without breaking the little plastic piece that keeps it in the vacuum. Anyway, one bag is $4. I bought two boxes of 8 two years ago, and until they moved in, I had only gone through half. They've already thrown out 4 in two months of living here. I'm not particularly passive aggressive about it--I already pointed out to them that I like to reuse them, which horrified my DIL I'm sure, and I will ask them to chip in on the next purchase. But it's one of those emotional hot buttons.
I also am perplexed by people who won't eat leftovers. Why not?? You'd rather throw out a decent meal just because you'd rather have something different? I don't get it. Of course, that's totally their business. I'm not paying their food bill and to each his own, but it still bugs me.
Those are my two pet peeves in the area of waste for the moment. I'm not perfect by a long shot, but those are two things that just rub me the wrong way.
What are yours?
One (of the millions) of my pet peeves is people buying stuff like jello/pudding in plastic cups that will last forever in the earth.
On trash day, as I drive to town, looking at people's trash out, I feel like the only person who recycles.
I agree catherine........why wouldn't a person eat leftovers? I had a friend who threw them out too. Maybe they just need to starve for awhile to appreciate them? Leftovers are really good! Some of my favorite foods are leftovers. :)
I got a new Riccar vacuum about 2 years ago. I was disappointed to see how substantial their filters were.........like cloth. Seems like someone could invent a reusable filter. (But people probably wouldn't buy it, as they might have to get their hands dirty!). I use mine until they are more than full. I think your DS and DIL maybe have a germ phobia? That's just wasteful.
I think most of us in this country (U.S.) are so used to excess and over-abundance that throwing things out prematurely has become second nature. :(
Miss Cellane
2-22-14, 10:51am
Paper towels.
Granted, I use some paper towels. But I go through about 2-3 rolls of them a year. My sister? She is currently sharing my apartment 3 days a week, due to her work schedule. This past week, she used three paper towels, wadded into a bunch, to remove a small food scrap from the kitchen sink. I'd have just picked it up with my fingers and thrown it out. She uses paper towels to clean the kitchen counters, even though I have clean rags and a sponge for just that type of job. I use cloth towels a lot in the kitchen and have pointed them out to her, but she still dries freshly washed fruits and vegetables on several layers of paper towels.
In the bathroom at work, we have a paper towel dispenser that we need to fill ourselves when it gets empty. When we're down to the last 50 or so towels, when you pull one towel a bunch will fall out onto the floor. A) The simple solution is to, you know, put more towels in the dispenser--they are sitting in a storage cabinet less than 10 feet away. But apparently I'm the only person who has figured this out, so the floor in front of the sinks is constantly littered with towels. B) Some people just leave the towels on the floor for someone else to pick up because, having touched the floor, they are contaminated and will give you a fatal illness if you touch them. Some people will pull a new, clean towel from the dispenser and use that to pick up and throw away the fallen towels. I dare not let them see me touch the floor-contaminated towels with my bare hands when I pick them up. 'Cause, you know, washing your hands in the sink that's *right there* never crosses their minds.
The waste at work really bothers me, in particular, when there is food or catering involved. For catered events, food is brought in on large plastic trays with lots of wrapping and it all ends up in the regular trash. A lot of food waste too. If I have time, I "rescue" the plastic and aluminum, rinse it and bring it home to recycle. Our city is aiming for zero waste so at home we now have to recycle or compost literally everything and are used to cleaning and sorting. The commercial world is slow to catch up.
The waste at work really bothers me, in particular, when there is food or catering involved.
Amen to that. My workplace has a recycle bin for bottles and cans, and another for paper, but that's about it. the cafeteria still serves food in a variety of plastic containers with no provision for recycling (unless you wash them and take them home), and the coffee machine still has a stack of styrofoam cups next to it. I think most businesses are big on being "green" when it saves them money (such as with conserving electricity), but when it comes to doing anything inconvenient, they seem to lose their enthusiasm.
My company insists that we recycle, and will not acknowledge that the program is ineffective. Most locations don't have a recycling bin. When I see a bin, it's filled with trash. Others have seen housekeeping through it all in the dumpster. But officially, in meetings, and clearly articulated, we have a recycling program. It's 1984 all over again. Say the opposite of the truth with veiled hostility toward anyone pointing out the obvious.
Correspondingly, why are there so few recycling receptacles at large public events? Our State Fair does very well in this respect, with collection containers for the eaten roast corn-on-the-cob and even containers for the foam cups in which beverages are served. But other events won't let you drop off so much as an empty plastic water bottle, readily recyclable pretty much anywhere else in town.
My election: people who keep their cars (or, worse, trucks) running just to keep the heat or lights or radio on while they're parked. I think every car I've ever owned has a key setting that keeps most electrical things alive without having a 3-liter gasoline generator going to power them. I've even arrived at the conclusion that pickups and SUVs must be very hard to start based on the number of drivers who don't seem to shut them off while shopping or idling for long periods of time. Manufacturers really ought to do something about that. >8)
I waste food and time. I love leftovers and prefer to cook stuff that will feed me for days and days longer. But, I shames me about how many fresh ingredients just pop out of my mind and never get used. This week it was an entire chicken, one of the cooked ones. I have bought those a few times since someone here wrote about how they use them, and thought to stop at the market for one on Thursday, after a very long day.
Then I remembered that I bought one on the way home on Sunday. I must have left it in the cart or at the checkout, because it is not anywhere and I did not remember buying it until Thursday. Wasted food and time, and money, and much worse than the occasional old couple of carrots or completely dried out bread. Absolutely no reason for this. My refrigerator is as tall as I am and has a bread-box sized freezer. There really is no place for food to hide in there and end up in the garbage (apartment, no way to compost anything).
Work is fine, everything, even scraps of paper are reused and recycled. The employee lounge has an easy to use recycling system and everyone seems to use it.
ApatheticNoMore
2-22-14, 2:05pm
Way too many to name, anything I wouldn't do. The world annoys me :). Ok all that little stuff not greatly but. I hate when people don't turn off lights, fans etc. when they are not clearly going in that room at all (if they were moving around a lot in between rooms whatever but they aren't). I don't care what the lightbulbs are but for heaven sake turn them off if you obviously aren't using them, that's just pointless. I hate the waste involved in "event planning", like even green events, yes events to promote sustainability, are approached with a wasteful attitude. It's like people (people who would never not recycle) have a separate mentality for "events" where massive waste suddenly becomes ok. It leads me to conclude that events are some of the most wasteful things imaginable (don't have to be but ...) I hate cars left running in idle too but not something I encounter that often. Oh and I probably will hate a huge Hummer if I see one, and huge trucks with one person in them. I hate how cellphones are designed to be replaced every few years. I hate when people start cranking the A/C when it's 75 degrees (hey when it's 100 we all are, and begging for mercy). I hate electronic waste in the apt dumpster (which I have stupidly rescued - no wonder this apt is becoming a dump in it's own right). I hate junk mail (also because it's a darn pain to take to recycling). I hate people who fly everywhere unaware of the serious environmental impact of flying (much more than driving or trains). Food waste well some food gets wasted here. I eat leftovers but it's more because life gets so hectic.
My workplace still insists on use of styrofoam cups for coffee---they know better; they're simply lazy. I've tried...it's futile.
Also bottled water.
Ditto about people flying everywhere, or driving distances like between towns on a casual basis, paper towels, styrofoam cups, food and everything else wrapped or boxed in plastic, computers (though I use one but admire the people I know who don't), watering anything outdoors in the Southwest except vegetables or fruit trees, junk mail including catalogs, owning many pairs of shoes, plastic bags.
The wasteful practices that bug me are insane financial bailouts of irresponsible, sociopathic corporations and their leadership. I really think these scurrilous individuals, who should be in prison, do more damage to the environment and our democratic republic than anything else.
On the household front, paper towels, styrofoam anything, and plastic bags.
Gardenarian
2-22-14, 5:03pm
Neighbors who use the hose to wash their driveway and sidewalk. We're in a drought, folks! And there's never a good time to be wasteful.
On a larger scale, the incredible waste of our prison system. We pay a fortune for incarceration - it costs as much to keep a prisoner as it does to send him to college - to Harvard! The waste of human beings as well as money is incalculable. California is the worst; we need serious prison reform now.
No offense to any teachers on board but there is a great deal of waste in our school systems. (I work at a community college and there is a lot of waste here as well - but nothing compared to the K-12 schools.)
The wasteful practices that bug me are insane financial bailouts of irresponsible, sociopathic corporations and their leadership. I really think these scurrilous individuals, who should be in prison, do more damage to the environment and our democratic republic than anything else.
That's one of the problems with the popular, democratic desire to redistribute wealth. You might say that democracy represents the waste of a republic.
Teacher Terry
2-22-14, 7:24pm
I know Alan the evil democrats are to blame for everything but if the Repub's were in charge things would be wonderful:devil: Not!!!!
That's one of the problems with the popular, democratic desire to redistribute wealth. You might say that democracy represents the waste of a republic.
It's not a matter of redistributing wealth. It's about changing the system that only benefits greedy people who profit by generating wealth out of thin air in the form of derivatives and hedge funds, etc.. I know we had a thread about Wealth Addiction recently.. Here is the Salon response to that article (http://www.salon.com/2014/01/22/the_latest_bogus_nytimes_trend_wealth_addiction_pa rtner/)which I think is interesting.
It's funny how when people are driven by excessive alcohol consumption they are derelicts, but when they are driven by excessive profit and wealth generation for no good other than the creation of more wealth, they are seen as patriots. I saw the Wolf of Wall Street and the Piers Morgan interview with the real "wolf," Jordan Belfort. Interesting to hear it all in his words. A free market economy is one thing. The shenanigans on Wall Street is another.
iris lilies
2-22-14, 7:47pm
Wasteful practices that bug me: a "save the earth" attitude coupled with precious little knowledge or ability to re-use materials.
Examples: Going to Lowes to buy, for instance, lumber and glass for your coldframes so that you (the generic you) can be all earth huggy but never considering re-using found materials which are all over this part of the city. In this vein DH has beautiful cold frames made with (some) scavenged lumber and completely scavenged glass windows. Building new Eco-friendly houses when renovating an existing urban structure uses significantly less of the earth's resources.
The greenies irk me.
ApatheticNoMore
2-22-14, 8:18pm
To say the bailouts represent popular democratic desire and a triumph of democracy over republicanism (small d and r) when the calls and letters were running 100-1 against TARP and our "representatives" voted for it anyway is really pretty much a complete negative image of the truth (up is down and down is up). GM I guess had at least *some* popular support for bailouts, but the banks had almost none, and the overwhelming popular will was completely ignored and they got bailed out anyway.
Though it wouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind when discussing wasteful practices. I mean yes corporations are major major polluters and what they do matters much more than individual attempts to cut back. But the banks are just wasting money and money in some sense isn't real (not that they should be getting it but pertaining to the thread title)
Stuff like this are what would come to mind:
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/30/265396179/much-of-north-dakota-s-natural-gas-is-going-up-in-flames
onlinemoniker
2-22-14, 8:42pm
No offense to any teachers on board but there is a great deal of waste in our school systems.
Not in my school system. They are so cheap they send out a paper every fall showing how much is spent per pupil in the state, national level and in our county. They do this so everyone can see how little they spend per pupil. They BRAG about it.
Pay cut 5 years ago. STILL making less than I was then (and it was low to begin with.)
This is my copy room: First copier, jams. Second and third copiers, won't feed the originals so no back/front. Fourth operates correctly. Me to copy lady: "When are they going to come fix them?" She replies: "He came yesterday. He already did."
I know Alan the evil democrats are to blame for everything but if the Repub's were in charge things would be wonderful:devil: Not!!!!I think you're confusing a type of government with the parties alledging to represent each form. That's ok, lots of folks do.
To say the bailouts represent popular democratic desire and a triumph of democracy over republicanism....
I didn't say that, although there's really not much difference between a government routing other peoples money to bailouts for businesses or subsidies for individuals. If you (the generic one of course) support one, you're also supporting the other. That's what I was implying.
Blackdog Lin
2-22-14, 8:47pm
The American tendency toward over-bathing and over-personal-cleanliness.
I have friends who seem almost horrified with my admission that I don't feel a need for a daily bath/shower/hairwashing (when I haven't done enough to get dirty or sweaty, of course), along with not understanding my ability to re-wear clothing that, you know, just really isn't soiled yet. Our reuse a bath towel for several uses. Or only use 2 tbs. of laundry detergent to get a large load of laundry clean.
The American tendency toward over-bathing and over-personal-cleanliness.
I have friends who seem almost horrified with my admission that I don't feel a need for a daily bath/shower/hairwashing (when I haven't done enough to get dirty or sweaty, of course), along with not understanding my ability to re-wear clothing that, you know, just really isn't soiled yet. Our reuse a bath towel for several uses. Or only use 2 tbs. of laundry detergent to get a large load of laundry clean.
Wow. You describe our household practices to a 'T'. We each take showers 2x a week, unless we've been in the garden or hiking. Towels get changed out every other week. Clothing work multiple times, except sox & unders. Tiny bits of laundry detergent, and only hot water for towels & bedding.
When my DSS moved out, our water bill quite literally dropped in half! That was a revelation... after bugging a young teen to attend to personal cleanliness, mid-high school he started taking 30 minute showers, no matter how much we harangued him, and almost daily. (Actually, he's since been diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I suspect he was managing his pain this way, but we didn't know that at the time.)
I applaud your choices!
Wasteful and dishonest - those who take out loans or take on debt with no intention of ever paying it back.....while the rest of us who do pay our bills diligently have to absorb the costs of their delinquencies.
Gardenarian
2-23-14, 2:57pm
I've never figured out the logic of the government paying farmers not to grow food, and at times paying them to destroy their harvest.
I think my biggest pet peeve about waste and nearly everything else in the world is fussy self-importance combined with a lack of common sense. Maybe people just can't be bothered educating themselves and take the "better safe than sorry" approach, but it's appalling sometimes. Person A puts down a paper toilet ring because oh my god, what you might catch from a toilet seat! Then it doesn't flush entirely and Person B refuses to try a second flush or god forbid pee into the toilet with that terrifying piece of paper in it, and instead treats the entire stall as if Person A probably died of typhoid fever while sitting there.
I object to the marketing angle that's convinced us that we must have a different product for absolutely every task we do. How gauche could you be, using the same product to wash your kitchen sink and your bathroom sink, your clothes and your dishes, your toilet and your floor, your face and your feet. Taken to its extreme, I'd say a person could own 80 different non-edible products in 80 different bottles, when 10 would be plenty (and if you're really being minimalistic, some of those 10 would be edible).
On the home front ... well I'm an extremist so at times almost everything bugs me, but the ones that crop up the most often:
running the washer half full because it's too much trouble to find the rest of what needs washing (ditto dishes). I don't really like using these devices at all, the dishwasher especially is so wasteful, and I certainly don't appreciate having half a load of stuff to wash after we run the machines.
Agreed, the piles of clothes in the hamper that have been worn for 4-5 hours while doing absolutely nothing but sitting around. Directly after taking a shower and putting on deodorant. In my eyes, that's better than a clean shirt, it's already got an extra protective layer of Axe in the armpits.
Condiment blindness. We have open duplicates of almost all of our stuff that ought to last weeks or even months because DH didn't look before he bought another jar of peanut butter, dressing, brummel or some other food.
Swag accumulation. It's sort of pre-waste, but we do not need another crappy pen, bookmark, half ounce tube of bad hand cream, fridge magnet for the local exterminator, booklet promoting the advantages of company x's product. We do not need six folders with fifteen glossy brochures for six cars we're choosing between. The less I take of stuff I don't need, the less has to be produced.
onlinemoniker
2-23-14, 4:59pm
I agree w/ blackdog and redfox. I do take a shower every morning I go to school but I only wash the vital areas and I condition-only my hair. As I have gotten older I can't keep my skin from being dry. I also apply body oil in the shower but it simply isn't enough. Although I am rarely uncomfortable bc of the dry skin. It's just dry. During the summer, I wash my hair far less frequently and the showers are much briefer and cooler. When I do, eventually, retire, I will bathe far less frequently.
I also us a lot less soap in all machines than it calls for. However, now that I (foolishly) bought a high efficiency washer I always do 2 rinses and I don't think the clothing comes clean and w/o the 2 rinses I can't get the cat/dog hair out. I also don't hang clothing on the line for the same reason. I don't want to put clean sheets on my bed that are pilled with balled up cat hair.
I am really getting more and more into the baking soda and vinegar for cleaning. Baking soda and a Libman ergonomic scrub bush gets EVERYTHING clean. And I don't have to breathe in those chemicals. Not that I clean a lot anyway. But still...
Not trying to co-opt this thread about wastefulness and turn it into cleaning.
I do hate to see food thrown away. I eat everything I make unless it has stuff growing on it. I do not waste a lot of money throwing food away.
I really hate to see people driving cars that are big and weighted down with literally tons of steel so they get really bad gas mileage. Given the state of fossil fuel reserves in this world now, we really should be moving away from the gas-guzzlers but so many seem so oblivious.
iris lilies
2-23-14, 5:17pm
I throw tons of food away. Don't worry, it all gets composted.
I can't help it that DH gardens as though we have a family of ten children. I cannot be responsible for bags and bags of carrots that taste like soap from our garden. You can't imagine how liberating it was on the day, years ago at the grocery store, when I placed a bag of carrots into our cart,looked him in the eye, and said "I am not eating your carrots any more." I easily eat a carrot a day and commercially grown carrots are da bomb!
When this year's fall crop of sweet potatoes was dumped out on kitchen counter, sure, I tried one of them. And it sucked. I threw the rest away (oh by the way--he won't eat them! He doesn't eat half of what he grows.)
The rotting onions in our basement? Half are edible, the rest get pitched. Our basement is full of squash. Now that's one area I could improve on, cooking squash. Acorn and Spaghetti squash are easy, the rest, not so much. Apple apples apples--half of the refrigerator in the basement if full of apples--some of them won't last and will have to be tossed.
So run me out of town for food "waste" I don't care. It's more of an overproduction problem here than a consumption problem.
I don't "hate seeing food wasted," in general. Some "food" is really junk and needs to go to the garbage. I think about all of the potlucks we go to where people just bring chips and cheap store-made cookies and cakes--that is all junk, tastes like crap, and needs to be put directly in the dumpster at the end of the party. I do think that people who cook a lot and then throw away batches of it are foolish with money, but that's up to them. One important thin I learned in Weight Watchers was this saying: The food is already produced, why do you think it has to go through you on the way to the garbage?
Yes, food that tastes like crap is definitely not worth eating. I'm shocked that his homegrown veggies don't taste good! Is he using organic methods? What's the soil like? Ok, that is a total aside. Back to the topic!
I'm interested in what causes carrots to taste like soap.
He could sell the food. Or give it to a good bank. But I like how you don't take on the responsibility to clean up after his hobby. :)
iris lilies
2-23-14, 7:01pm
Yes, food that tastes like crap is definitely not worth eating. I'm shocked that his homegrown veggies don't taste good! Is he using organic methods? What's the soil like? Ok, that is a total aside. Back to the topic!
Clay soil and although he has spent decades amending it, it's still clay-like. His potatoes and sweet potatoes are worthless. Now don't get me wrong, there are many things that grow well here, and then in some years ti's a good crop and in others, not so much. I also suspect that he could play around with varieties of carrot to find the right ones for this climate, but he hasn't done that. Our friend grew lovely potatoes in her patch, wish he'd find out the variety.
He uses the carrots in carrot cake but there is only so much of that he can make.
Sending the soapy-tasting carrots to the food pantry? I thought that giving anything "less-than" to poor people is frowned upon. Our community garden has the same problem, rotting veggies in the beds. There is always ideas about how to address that but someone really has to step forward to do the work of contacting bed owners for permission to pick, then picking, then hauling to the appropriate food pantry. It's mostly ideas that people love, action isn't so popular.
ApatheticNoMore
2-23-14, 7:25pm
There's groups that do that (harvest unused food for the homeless etc.), but I doubt it's going to get all the food that is grown and goes to waste out there, because it's noone's full time job.
Wow, too bad he spends all that time, energy, and water raising inedible food!
iris lilies
2-23-14, 9:02pm
Wow, too bad he spends all that time, energy, and water raising inedible food! He thinks his carrots are fine! But then, he cooks them in carrot cake with lots of sugar. Of course they would be fine!
The onions are fine when they come into the basement, but rot sets in at some point. The quantity is excessive even with him giving bunches to neighbors.
Except for the cherries and strawberries. There cannot be too many of these. :)
Clay soil and although he has spent decades amending it, it's still clay-like.
How discouraging! I have clay soil. You could throw a pot with it. We do get some tomatoes out of it, but some years are better than others. I've been composting for two years and I thought maybe that would help, along with a little light tillage with a broadfork and some mulch.. guess not.
I'm thinking of raised beds with sheet mulching this spring. My herbs in pots always do great, so maybe I need to accept the limitations of my soil.
Thanks all of you for bringing up the wasteful personal hygiene practices! I feel so much better now! I am not a daily shower/bath taker. I use one towel for a few days... really, if you get out of the shower clean and pat yourself dry, how dirty is that towel?? Same for clothes. I always wear them two or three days in a row (when I'm at home--certainly not on the road with clients).
My frugal Scottish MIL bathed once a week. She didn't believe in deodorant, but would wash her face and "oxters" (armpits) daily. I never once got any whiff of B.O. on her.
*food* bank
I second that. There are foodbanks that would take fresh produce. Does ALL the produce taste bad? Or just the carrots. I know a person who grows tons of food in his yard. He sells it easily to a Indian restaurant that wants it's produce to be fresh.
I use sanitizing hand spray as a deodorant, as they have alcohol in them, which kills the bacteria that causes odor. I keep a light orange scented one in my work desk. Got 'em at Whole Foods, and they are über cheap.
To me, make-up is a waste. It seems so pricey! I wear some when I have to work the Gala event for my job, or for a job interview. Daily? No way! I am way too cheap & lazy to take the time to apply at stuff. Likewise, getting hair colored. I have wash n wear hair, and that's it.
To Catherine, there have been times I've told the kids to just stop, you're "helping" is too expensive. Maybe something along those lines would get through to them?
I like leftovers, I think they often taste better the next couple of days. I also re-make things. Apple sauce today is apple crisp a few days later, things like that. I try to start with simple foods, then add to them to make something else. I made the weirdest pizza yesterday, it had leftover carrots, potatoes, olives, pineapple, basically cleaned out the fridge, but it was good. Well, to me anyway.
I don't use soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant nor do I wear make-up. I wash my dishes and laundry by hand with baking soda and vinegar. Washing a bath towel by hand is hard work, it doesn't get washed till it needs washed.
My peeve is when someone will tell me I'm wrong, before they have even looked into it. Just because they don't know how to use a washing board doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Thanks for this thread. I feel better now.
catherine
2-24-14, 10:19am
The waste at work really bothers me, in particular, when there is food or catering involved. For catered events, food is brought in on large plastic trays with lots of wrapping and it all ends up in the regular trash. A lot of food waste too. If I have time, I "rescue" the plastic and aluminum, rinse it and bring it home to recycle. Our city is aiming for zero waste so at home we now have to recycle or compost literally everything and are used to cleaning and sorting. The commercial world is slow to catch up.
I recently did a recycling market research study, which was so cool--a nice departure from all the healthcare stuff I do. We chose to go to Boston and Seattle because those two cities are considered to be pretty progressive in terms of sustainability. You are right about the commercial world being a bit behind the eight ball, but in some cases, it's not due to lack of interest--they tell me that training employees who subsequently still don't recycle properly is very frustrating. The lack of a decent single stream system is also a barrier. One of the interesting findings was that some of the best ideas for sustainability programs in even very large hotels, schools and retail establishments came from the ground floor--a student, or a minimum wage worker who just was really into recycling and pushed upstream--so that was very encouraging.
For you guys in the NW: one of the other things that facilitated more recycling of food i.e. composting etc. was a company called Cedar Grove. That company just went door-to-door to all these businesses and sold their service on the basis of it being free--so it diverted waste that the companies would normally have to pay to have taken away. What a great job they have done! So if anyone is looking to start a green business, pick a city that really needs a system and service for disposing of food waste--it probably won't be hard to convince those who would like to do it, but just don't have the way.
Sad Eyed Lady
2-24-14, 11:40am
I feel the same as most of you who have posted here about bottled water, styrofoam cups, all the throw away stuff that our society so eagerly embraces. But, I think the ONE thing that always makes really sad is the waste or food that could be given to the homeless, to shelters etc. but because of rules and regulations must be throw away. I am thinking in particular of places that serve "family style" and will bring large bowls of food to the table. There is usually just DH and myself, so of course we are not going to eat bowls of food! I was in the rest room later when one of the servers came in and I asked her about it thinking maybe the servers got to take home some leftovers. (take out boxes are allowed at this place I think). She said "no, we have to throw it all away". I know there are rules but good food, taken out with a clean spoon, has to be throw in the trash? That bothers me when I know there are hungry people that it would be a feast for. This was a fairly pricey restaurant at an historic restored shaker village and they are known for their good food, but why not serve LESS of it and bring one more serving if a person requires it? Too wasteful Makes me sad. :(
catherine
2-24-14, 11:58am
I agree, SEL--I did some volunteer work at a homeless shelter in NYC and one of the reasons that I will always go to the healthy grab-and-go store, Pret A Manger in NYC, is because they donate all their expired food to the shelter. Not sure why other companies don't take the time to find the loopholes that permit doing the same.
Years ago, in a small nearby town, I worked in the kitchen of a restaurant. The plates coming into the kitchen after a meal were scraped into a trash can. At the end of the night we could take home that bag of scraps for our chickens and compost.
Our nearest grocery store will sell us ripe produce for a discount. I was surprised they could do this. I'm not slipping in and out the back door, I go right through the checkout line with a heaping box of food with a price written on the side. Nothing is weighted, no produce codes to punch in. Anything that is past eat-ability, goes to compost. It's a win-win-win! The grocer gets some money for what is a few days from the trash bin, we get to try a variety of produce that I probably wouldn't have bought, and our compost piles are thriving!
But, I think the ONE thing that always makes really sad is the waste or food that could be given to the homeless, to shelters etc. but because of rules and regulations must be throw away.
This ^...
Many years ago, I took my leftovers from dinner in a takeout box. As we were driving, we had a change of plans and were not going directly home to refrigerate my food. I directed dh to drive by the "known homeless area" and I gifted my meal to someone. Now, I regularly take what is left and give to those same people - on purpose, and with no intention of taking my leftovers home for me, but the restaurant is just going to throw it in the garbage.
Other waste - watering for a green lawn, not using the last of a bottle of something - I put one bottle upside down on top of the other and drain every last drip, what I term the cheapening of produced products - it's like they want stuff to fail in a short time so one must buy a new one instead of the "old-fashioned" quality of lasting a lifetime.
frugal-one
2-24-14, 3:30pm
The local grocery store gives day old or bruised (sometimes perfect)produce and bakery items to the local senior center. People line up to take what they want. It is amazing the "stuff" they would have thrown out that is perfectly edible. Today they also had organic milk and eggs that were a few days away from expiration .... for free. I frequent this grocery store more than I did in the past based on this generosity. I don't know why more places don't do this????
And then some hungry people eat that food out of the dumpster. Nothing solved, nothing prevented by the restaurant. Pathetic.
It is heart-breaking how much food gets wasted on a daily basis at my job - only pre-packaged items can go to the food bank. The items taken off the hot bar after their allotted time are spoiled out. I do tend to do a lot of one bite snacking at work before it gets tossed. Yep, my waistline is starting to show it too...but it is hard to see perfectly good food go to waste.
He doesn't eat half of what he grows.
I walk a lot in my neighborhood and am confounded by all the food I see growing that never gets eaten. There is one house on a corner with multiple raised beds full of cabbages, broccoli, and greens and not one bit of it has been picked. It is as if the garden in your front yard is more of a look how trendy I am thing rather than growing it to actually eat. Our city just moved to recycling or composting literally everything. They sent a guide today that will take a bit of time to go through as there is much to learn but glad they are at least attempting it.
SteveinMN
2-24-14, 11:58pm
Different food shelves have different rules, usually brought on by different capabilities. Our regional food bank has standing agreements with many local supermarkets and restaurants to accept prepared food that has not been served; they can take it hot or cold and keep it safe to eat until it is redistributed to homeless shelters, etc., within a few hours. But that depends on having trucks which can keep the food at the right temperature and on a large-enough client base to actually justify the expense of the trucks and staff and deliveries. Once food has been served, it cannot be re-served -- you just never know when someone who is sick (and may not know it) or is sick (in-the-head sick) could contaminate the food.
not using the last of a bottle of something - I put one bottle upside down on top of the other and drain every last drip
I do this, too. I was amazed to find how much was left inside a bottle of skin moisturizer.
One would think that the people who sell the plastic jug could find a material for the bottle which did not cling to the moisturizer so well. But then one thinks that a) this is not the packaging company's problem; b) the moisturizer company likes it, too, because they sell more product; and c) neither one of them pays for the disposal of not-quite-empty bottles of moisturizer anyway, so why do they care?
I use a utility knife to cut open bottles of lotion so I can get every last bit - sometimes I have eked out three more days worth of body lotion clinging to the sides by doing this!
chrissieq
2-25-14, 10:15am
SiouzQ, I do the same - I have been known to use a chopstick to eke out the last of a moisturizer and put it in a small container and use until gone.
catherine
2-25-14, 10:20am
SiouzQ, I do the same - I have been known to use a chopstick to eke out the last of a moisturizer and put it in a small container and use until gone.
Did you guys ever see the Shark Tank episode where the woman invented a teeny, tiny spatula called the Spatty, designed to eke out the last bits of stuff inside make-up bottles? She got a deal with the Sharks.
I use a utility knife to cut open bottles of lotion so I can get every last bit - sometimes I have eked out three more days worth of body lotion clinging to the sides by doing this!
yup, i save up about 6 cetaphil bottles and when my wife is low on her last one i cut them all open and scrape with a silicone scraper and fill one up, usually almost half way.
SteveinMN
2-26-14, 11:48am
I've done the bottle-upside-down thing and cut them open, too. Darned if I'm buying into that little game! :)
frugal-one
2-26-14, 6:26pm
I walk a lot in my neighborhood and am confounded by all the food I see growing that never gets eaten. There is one house on a corner with multiple raised beds full of cabbages, broccoli, and greens and not one bit of it has been picked. It is as if the garden in your front yard is more of a look how trendy I am thing rather than growing it to actually eat. Our city just moved to recycling or composting literally everything. They sent a guide today that will take a bit of time to go through as there is much to learn but glad they are at least attempting it.
Last year at the end of summer I went with one of my neighbors to the compost site. There were whole plants pulled from the roots with the vegetables still on them that people had brought to the site. We took boxes and I picked many tomatoes, took them home and cleaned them, put in the basement and had tomatoes until Thanksgiving. She had squash (not my favorite) and other vegetables. Was quite astonishing that people did not give these vegetables away rather than throwing them in the compost.
catherine
2-27-14, 10:02am
I'm loving these responses!
Here's another one.. I have some family members who shall remain nameless who have all the accoutrements of coffee-making--french press, drip filter, Keurig machine, etc., etc. Yet every morning they get in their cars and drive a quarter of a mile to the local convenience store to buy their morning coffee.
I don't get that at all! What a waste of time, money, gas, and the cups are disposable styrofoam.
SteveinMN
2-27-14, 11:07am
I have some family members who shall remain nameless who have all the accoutrements of coffee-making--french press, drip filter, Keurig machine, etc., etc. Yet every morning they get in their cars and drive a quarter of a mile to the local convenience store to buy their morning coffee.
Do these folks also have big beautiful kitchens in which they never cook? :)
SteveinMN
2-27-14, 11:11am
There were whole plants pulled from the roots with the vegetables still on them that people had brought to the site. We took boxes and I picked many tomatoes, took them home and cleaned them, put in the basement and had tomatoes until Thanksgiving.
A friend of mine rents some of his farmland to growers who then take their produce to the local farmer's market. I was there at harvest time last year while he was collecting bushels of tomatoes which were dented or spotted or otherwise deemed imperfect enough to sell at the market. Even after the bad parts were peeled away, there was enough to make cases of tomato juice and spaghetti sauce. But if he were not willing to put in the couple of days work involved in gathering, grinding, boiling, and canning, what would have happened to that produce? It's not like he lives along some well-traveled road where he could just put up a sign marked "Free". Not to defend the waste, but I can see how it can happen. Would that there were better ways to gather those gleanings....
Do these folks also have big beautiful kitchens in which they never cook? :)
Years ago, I cleaned houses with this description. It was incredible. One in particular was inhabited by a model, who was painfully thin and blonde. She never even had food in the kitchen... Which I suppose is a job requirement. Ugh. It shocked me as being shamefully wasteful, to own a place that is all show and no utility.
We used to glean cauliflowers heads for our sheep! It's one of the funniest sights, to see sheep trying to chew down on heads of cauliflower, rolling along on the ground. Round white wooly beasts chasing round white veggies. They loved the cauli.
We used to glean cauliflowers heads for our sheep! It's one of the funniest sights, to see sheep trying to chew down on heads of cauliflower, rolling along on the ground. Round white wooly beasts chasing round white veggies. They loved the cauli.
I love that image, redfox! thank you for the smile this grey day.
Nuclear waste, right now down in Southeastern NM, where a lot stored.
Because I fly a lot, I am a member of the "Presidential Plus" airline club. That puts me into a demographic that often represents things that are at odds with my own values..
So I get this big, shiny royal blue, expensive bubble pack in the mail the other day. It weighed a couple of pounds and it was thick. Inside was a book the size of a small coffee table book, with slick high quality pages. And the equally slick cover letter, signed by the SVP of Marketing and Loyalty, said "it is our pleasure to present you with the 2014 edition of The Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection Directory.
Really? Don't people have the internet? I don't even get telephone books anymore. This was a huge waste of time, paper, and shipping. It's going right into the recycling. What a waste.
iris lilies
3-4-14, 11:33am
Because I fly a lot, I am a member of the "Presidential Plus" airline club. That puts me into a demographic that often represents things that are at odds with my own values..
So I get this big, shiny royal blue, expensive bubble pack in the mail the other day. It weighed a couple of pounds and it was thick. Inside was a book the size of a small coffee table book, with slick high quality pages. And the equally slick cover letter, signed by the SVP of Marketing and Loyalty, said "it is our pleasure to present you with the 2014 edition of The Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection Directory.
Really? Don't people have the internet? I don't even get telephone books anymore. This was a huge waste of time, paper, and shipping. It's going right into the recycling. What a waste.
That is just silly. Whose brother-in-law at that company owns the printing house?
resign from the airline club?
Apart from wasting time ( and I am guilty of that a lot ) what really annoys me is bottled water and disposable paper everything. There exist re-usable cloth alternatives which worked for hunreds of years and I don't see any reason why not to use them nowadays. Sure, I do use toilet paper. But why waste paper towels when we have dishcloths, wipe your mouth with a paper napkin when a serviette even feels better? And I have never heard of anyone dying for using handkerchiefs instead of uncountable boxes of tissues.
Maybe it's the common practice of using car when 'going' shopping that encourages this behaviour. I guess a lot of people would think twice before drinking bottled water when their tap water is perfectly fine and using piles and piles of paper napkins, tissues and towels had they have to carry them home in their hands.
I am also amazed by people using clothes dryer which is becomming more and more common here. I feel it's not only huge waste of energy but the clothes that is regularly dired in a dryer don't last so long. Plus it smells much better when you let the clothes hang-dry.
I used to get upset by wasting food in households (well, I still do and I don't get it why some people refuse to eat left overs or freeze the extra portions for later) but not long ago I had opportunity to learn how much food is thrown away in restaurants and shops and it really terrifies me. They aren't even allowed to offer the food to be thrown away to the hungry and homeless people nor is it composted.
I live in a big city with a great infrastructure - great and inexpensive public transportation, sidewalks almost everywhere, parks, ... and yet there are thousands of people who use cars to get somewhere when they don't need to. I mean situations when a single person drives to a place easily reachable by tram or bus or even within walking distance. Like my DH driving the 500m to work even when it takes him longer to get the snow and ice off the window than it would take him to walk there and get some fresh air and exercise.
Well, it upsets me or to be more precise it makes me sad and worried but it's everybody's personal choice and I can't force anyone to change. We all just can do what we can leading by example.
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