I'm the one that had/has the vitamins that were too big for me. I kept telling myself I'd use them (and I should have know otherwise) and eventually they were expired but I still have the 3/4 of the bottle I didn't use. I'm curious how you suggest one reuses expired vitamins. I'm in agreement that one should reuse if at all possible, but you must have a much greater imagination than me if you know how to reuse vitamins better than the suggestions in the thread this came up in which was "Expired Vitamins in the compost".

I don't know about the brown paper post, but let me give you a scenario where I think you are very incorrect on your assumption that Freecycle would be the better option if I came across a roll of brown paper not in use and I had no other use for it but composting. If I put it into the compost, it will break down and provide food for much life including mine. No landfill material where it will take a lot longer to break down due to likely being doused with other chemicals from other trash. If I put it on Freecycle then someone possibly uses it for packaging. That packaging is not nearly as likely to get reused again and will likely go into a landfill because the number of people that don't reuse or compost is exponentially higher than those people like us that do. And Freecycle isn't just full of greenies. It's also full moochers or poor people looking for free stuff. It's a fact that neither of those groups is notorious for their recycling/composting habits. You might think I'm being harsh or politically incorrect, but try driving in a poor area and tell me how littered it is because the people just don't care. Can anyone here speak up from the south side of Chicago (specifically halstead street where the plastic bottles outnumber the blades of grass) or certain areas on the east side of Indianapolis, please? How about the poor areas of Gary, IN? Anyway, the proof is lying in all those yards and along those streets so I don't feel bad about my statement. The point is that the roll of paper is a lot more likely to end up in a landfill using freecycle and the benefit of reuse is largely reduced to less than the benefit of composting it. And I didn't even add in the gas used to transport the roll of paper if you use Freecycle.

Let's consider the Freecycle person is like us, but doesn't compost. Instead, the person used the paper for kid projects and turned around and recycled it afterward. Good for them! But the environmental impact of the recycling (which uses fuel and emits lots of carbon and requires transportation) in the end is still larger than the impact of simply composting it. So my good intentions actually led to a worse impact. I find a lot of "environmentalists" tend to forget to take in the big picture. They only see the immediate effect and choose not to think further to the end result. It's why a lot of "environmentalists" buy bottled water. They think that recycling the bottle makes it okay and makes them green. They choose not to consider how much recycling adds to the waste stream, carbon emissions, and pollution. Instead, they throw the plastic into a recycling bin or reuse it a couple of times and then do so and then feel good about their decision to make this a better environment. They forget that all that was negated by the very purchase of the bottle of water in the first place. Are you taking in the big picture? Or are you seeing one simple act as the saving grace while ignoring the rest of the process? I don't think you are purposely ignoring it. But I do think a lot of people accidentally do with good intentions.

And I am the one about the roll of paper. It's STILL on the freeway, still run over by cars and trucks. If traffic is slow on my way home from work, I'll pull over, grab it and mail it to you. For free! But please post what you used it for. There's probably 2 feet of it.

Ok, say it was a roll of good paper (not run over on the freeway). If I am needing some paper for some purpose, shipping or whatever, I will get some paper somewhere. If you freecycle it, and I get it, that's a roll of paper that doesn't need to be purchased. If you compost it instead, I won't have the opportunity to use that roll, and will likely have to go purchase a new one, meaning another will be manufactured. How is that better in the big picture??

How much gasoline was used in the non-composting of that paper?

Yes, reusing it is wonderful, but sometimes doing it with every single little thing just isn't feasible.

Sue

Greenbeano8 said:

"Ok, say it was a roll of good paper (not run over on the freeway). If I am needing some paper for some purpose, shipping or whatever, I will get some paper somewhere. If you freecycle it, and I get it, that's a roll of paper that doesn't need to be purchased. If you compost it instead, I won't have the opportunity to use that roll, and will likely have to go purchase a new one, meaning another will be manufactured. How is that better in the big picture??"

Or you might actually use old newpaper or phonebook paper. Phonebook paper is so recycled it is worse for the environment to recycle it than to throw it in general refuse. You get so little usable return for those heavy things that it's not worth picking up a recycle bin full of them because the impact is so much higher that way. If you go purchase a roll of brown paper for packaging, we should be discussing how financially and environmentally stupid that act is in and of itself because there are so many cheaper methods to package with materials that don't involve highly damaging processes. The only people that rely on rolls of paper for that purpose are the ones that can buy it in huge amounts. To the people on Freecycle a roll of paper is not a good packaging option from an environmental standpoint. Plus, if it's a roll of good paper (as I was under the impression from the original post) then do you think you would be using the whole roll for packaging? Most rolls of brown paper for that come in pretty big rolls and are meant for packaging businesses or people with a business that does a lot of shipping. Some people use it for moving, too. Again, not the most intelligent option if you don't get it for free because newsprint, already recycled at least once, is largely available. Most people from Freecycle probably wouldn't have ever gone for the brown paper if they had to purchase it and would only use it if it happens to be free (unless they just can't do simple math). There are too many less expensive options. My whole point is that there are a lot more scenarios that show that reuse isn't really as environmentally friendly as one thinks if the end result negates the good qualities of reuse. In this isntance of brown paper, we're not even talking about reuse. We're talking about letting someone else put the product to an initial use and is that initial use better than the composting. The point of Freecycle is to keep things out of landfills. It says so on their home page. Composting guarantees that goal is met.

Well, I didn't mean to start a kerfuffle, friends. I should have known mentioning the vitamins and the paper would make people think I was picking on them, which was not my intention. If the paper's run over, and Freecycle in your town is full of wastrels, and your vitamins are expired, so be it. There was one poster on the vitamin thread who said theirs were not expired, and that's what got me thinking. I was simply suggesting that *in general* we always consider the "highest and best use" of a material. If someone gives me a bushel of apples, I could compost them, but I'm likely to make pie first and compost the peelings. That's all.

Causing people to think is never a mistake! You are very correct that we all need to think about how we are reusing products, there is sooo much waste in this world.

Just to increase awareness even more I'm posting a link for those who might like to reuse even those peelings. ;)

Here is a link that might be useful: recipes using apple peelings

If I had a half bottle of vitamins that I wasn't going to use, even if they weren't out of date, I'd probably compost them. I don't know of anyone that wasn't a family member or or close friend that would want vitamins without the safety seal intact. I mean, if I needed vitamins and saw someone on Freecycle posting a half-bottle, there's no way I'd be a taker.

That is a very good point. Same goes for food - I see some sealed packages offered on Freecycle, if I was in need I'd probably bite. At our house I'm the disposer for the wife's unwanted vitamins, toothpaste she didn't like the taste of, etc. etc. You can almost always find SOMEone to use things up.

Luckygal, thanks for the link. Times must have been tough when people resorted to recipes for peelings. We could be headed that way again.

The subject of using apple peels actually came up on a food forum recently. I'd only use them (if at all) if they were organic so I'm really not recommending it.