@lisaam check out the link for Ridwell I posted. They really DO recycle what they take. It's a drop in the bucket but I think it could be the future of recycling. For all the talk about bringing back American manufacturing, I don't understand why we aren't investing in innovative recycling and producing recycled goods to reduce our waste and put people to work.

And I completely agree with you about flying. We are just so privileged and entitled to hop on planes all around the planet with no (apparent) thought to the carbon footprint that lifestyle creates.

I’ll be delighted if Ridwell can be successful in Seattle and then normalize that recycling to other areas! Starting in a densely populated sympathetic area makes sense.

We're last on the garbage pickup route. Our paper bags are put on top of a whole cart full of carefully tied white plastic bags preserving our neighbors' food waste for posterity.

Here is a list of where Ridwell is now operating: https://blog.ridwell.com/blog/ridwell-service-areas

If we get leftovers or deli in a plastic container, not a clamshell, it definitely gets reused. For years. Decades. For tools, parts, stationery and office supplies, arts and crafts, all kinds of miscellaney. Plant trays. Under bottles or things that might leak or be sticky, or to pretect from water coming from underneath. I would love to be able to bring containers from home to fill at the store or restaurant, but most can’t do that because of the risk.

To answer the question, No. Getting into a discussion with the counter person at a restaurant is a waste of time, when likely the food has already been packaged and is ready to go.

I'm not sure from a health standards perspective a restaurant can use a customer's container for take out. Maybe it's okay, I don't know.

I long ago became a devotee of the notion Don't Sweat The Small Stuff. Concern about things with bigger consequences will always have more impact than small gestures. Small gestures add up to small totals.

It is difficult for those who cant see the accumulative effort of millions as counting for anything but we got into this present fix one plastic bag or clamshell at a time. If we can trash the planet one plastic thing at a time we can make a positive effect with despensing with one plastic thing at a time. But if you cant see yourself cojoined with millions of other people then you arent going to get that.

patriciae

Self awareness is a very valuable trait.

We find it easier to reuse plastics than avoid them. Right now I have two 'take out' containers in my fridge holding fresh basil and chives from my garden. The plastic sacks that line our garbage cans are ones raw product from DH's company comes in. Ice cream pails are put to many uses in my garden, holding extra snacks at holidays when company is high etc. Never ever would I buy bottled water. Even when we did Disney we each carried our own metal water bottles. I was 100% disillusioned decades ago by the pictures of warehouses full of 'recycling' that actually had no use. Newspaper/plastics/glass... Each of us can only do what we can in our own little space, all the while remembering any carbon emissions we avoided for the previous five years were wiped out by the wild fires that raged in CA and Canada..... The earth has a natural cooling warming cycle. Scientists have documented it going back in time. Do your best and move forward!!!

I try to avoid what I can and re-use what I can but I don't stress about it. We usually only have one kitchen bag to put out a week. I also compost what is easily compostable. My finished compost has a lot of snotty tissues as an input which begs the question...is snot a green or a brown?

" Self awareness is a very valuable trait. "

You're right, carol. Small thinkers can also have a self-righteous streak too, so it's something they often are lacking.

Snot is definitely a green but the tissues would be brown. So a good balance all in all.

As for plastic: reduce, reuse, recycle - in that order. Shops here stopped giving out free plastic bags some years ago and suddenly people discovered they didn't need them after all. Even a tiny price was a deterrent. Just 10 pence was enough to change behaviour.

Quoting Lonejack: " I don't stress about it. "

I try to do my part with concern on a more macro scale. I try to make better choices with alternatives with bigger consequences concerning things I can act on or make choices about. Plastic forks with takeout and plastic bottles for ketchup are too small to be concerned with. What I do or don't do with these contributes nothing to having a concern for more thoughtful conduct by me and by others. I'm not in to trying to feel good about doing things that really have no consequence. I have no feelings or guilt about it, and I'm not that needy as to try to make something insignificant into more than it is. .

I do what I can to minimize my impact. I know the earth has cycles but we seem to be speeding that process up and refusing to admit it is happening. You can argue that humans have nothing to do with global warming but you cant argue it isnt happening since ice shelfs and glaciers are melting. We arent preparing for what is coming.

Plastics are another ball of wax. Since it has been learned how dangerous and forever it is we are using more and more. egg cartons are now plastic and food trays are foam and I wonder if the wood pulp became too valuable to make disposables out of or what.

patriciae

Frankly, I think one of the greenest things we can change is to fly a lot less—- not a popular option. Meanwhile we are counting the number of paper towels we use.

I'm pretty curious how this would help anything. Wouldn't the alternative conveyances cause more problems?

❗️👀Southeast Asia flooded with imported plastic waste meant for recycling | PBS News

Last year, the U.S. exported more than 950 million tons of plastic waste meant for recycling and a significant portion of that ended up in Southeast Asia. The region has been inundated with plastic scrap after China blocked all but the cleanest plastic waste imports in 2018. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how Thailand is dealing with the problem of plastic.

Read the Full Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/southeast-asia-flooded-with-imported-plastic-waste-meant-for-recycling

-~~~

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The issue is really best addressed on a larger public scale - as in making it mandatory for the co.s producing all this wasteful material responsible for it throughout its lifecycle. If they had to be responsible for it, I think there would be a change. Doesn't that happen in other countries?

We have a system whereby laws can make that possible, however, it seems that large business interests take priority over the common good here in the USA.

The reason that I mentioned flying is that it is frequently discretionary, most flights are made by a relatively small number of the world’s population, and all flights together constitute a lot of carbon.

If I don’t fly to Spain I might drive somewhere else instead, but I belive that there would likely be a reduction in carbon released. If Itake a train that is more energy efficient.

We visited a coastal community a few years back and stayed there a week. None of the food establishments we visited used styrofoam, cups or clamshells. No plastic straws. Only bio-degradable cups and recycled paper to-go containers. pretty impressive, I thought.

Here in my peninsular state, our gov., in his infinite wisdom, signed a law prohibiting local gov'ts from passing their own regulations over single use plastics 🙄

@rob333 (zone 7b) "I'm pretty curious how this would help anything. Wouldn't the alternative conveyances cause more problems?" I think the point is unnecessary travel, especially long distance.

I see no reason to avoid trying to reduce plastic use on a small scale as well as on a larger scale. It all adds up. Is this large scale or small scale? (note that many of the stats are from 2018 and are surely much higher now - the article states the plastic industry plans on increasing their products by 40% in the next 10 years following the date of the article. The date of the most recent source cited is 2023, but I can't find a date of publication. I donate $ to them and receive their newsletters. The footnotes/sources of the stats are available at the link.)

10 Facts About Single-Use Plastic Bags

1. The world uses 5 trillion plastic bags a year.
2. Americans use an average of 365 plastic bags per person per year. People in Denmark use an average of four plastic bags per year.
3. It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile.5
4. In 2015 about 730,000 tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps were generated (including PS, PP, HDPE, PVC & LDPE) in the United States, but more than 87% of those items are never recycled, winding up in landfills and the ocean.
5. About 34% of dead leatherback sea turtles have ingested plastics.
6. The plastic typically used in bottles, bags and food containers contains chemical additives such as endocrine disruptors, which are associated with negative health effects including cancers, birth defects and immune system suppression in humans and wildlife.
7. It takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately, the bags don't break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.
8. Chemical leachates from plastic bags impair the growth of the world’s most important microorganisms, Prochlorococcus, a marine bacterium that provides one tenth of the world’s oxygen.
9. There were 1.9 million grocery bags and other plastic bags collected in the 2018 International Coastal Cleanup.
10. In 2014 California became the first state to ban plastic bags. As of March 2018, 311 local bag ordinances have been adopted in 24 states, including Hawaii.12 As of July 2018, 127 countries have adopted some form of legislation to regulate plastic bags.

Source: Center for Biodiversity

Wrapping our garbage in plastic bags is one huge source of plastic pollution. If people would switch to compostable garbage bags, it would make a huge impact.

We need to be more like Denmark.

FWIW, we roofed our house last year using Malarkey shingles. I wasn't aware of them beforehand, but they use recycled tires and plastics in their shingles. Very good impact resistance to hail and we got a 17% discount on our homeowners' policy. Malarkey Shingle Info

We can reduce or reuse our single-use plastics all we like, but … walk into any store, be it Staples, or Michaels, or a grocery or department or convenience store, and you see plastic. Acres of plastic. Remote controls and shirt buttons, tchotchkes, tableware, car parts, computer accessories, luggage, pens, paint cases, beauty tools. I suppose they are not single use, but look at how much there is! Eventually it all goes … where?

Let's look at the person just above who posted the long list.

-If she avoids single use plastic and encourages others to do so, the effect will be lower Asian and other takeout food sales and perhaps more in-restaurant dining. And little else. Most of the plastic pollution in the ocean comes from Asia and poor countries elsewhere.

-If she stops burning wood for heat and encourages others to do so, the effect is likely to be fewer child asthma attacks.

Which is more impactful and important? Does doing the first provide an indulgence or absolution for doing the second?

We can be extremely resorceful when there is a will for change!

And how about all those shipped products in bubble wrap, air pillows and mailing bags?

Plastic packaging is everywhere - and constitutes so many products now - try finding kids' toys that don't have plastic.

And FWIW, the Federal summer lunch program and our health dept.s require serving individually packaged items, for food safety, so lots of plastic waste there.

P.S. Conservation's not a zero sum game - it is possible to do more than one positive thing at a time.

" And how about all those shipped products in bubble wrap, air pillows and mailing bags? "

What do you propose to do this week, carol, to reduce the use of bubble wrap and air pillows? Are you going to agonize about it a little each day?

There are surely wonderful innovations that can be imagined by those who understand materials and can imagine novel ideas. Expecting those innovations from a group such as this is unnecesary. But yes, assign it to college engineers, material science people, and creatives.

@jrb451 thanks for that info about Malarky roofs. I am not quite ready for a new one, but will definitely check into them when the time comes.

@carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10 I order from Target sometimes and if the item isn't in the store for me to pick up, they will ship for free. I noticed a while ago that they had stopped using plastic packaging and pillows and are using brown paper much of the time. (They do wrap liquids in a plastic bag to prevent leaks, tho). Another reason I love Ridwell, is that they recycle bubblewrap and plastic bags/pillows. They contract with Trex to turn it all into decking materials.

A lot of companies are now shipping things wrapped and cushioned by brown paper. Maybe more will follow their lead. I am trying mightily to avoid all plastic. DH who worked at the EPA for 40 years with much of it in water and helped to write the Clean Water Act should be ashamed of himself as does not try to avoid at all. Makes me so angry.

I haven’t read this entire thread, so this could have been mentioned already.

The comments about bubble wrap caught my eye. I have noticed that a lot more things are being shipped in honeycomb cardboard/paper.

https://www.novapor.com/en/materials/honeycomb-cardboard/

Lisaam, I agree that if there is a need for something, someone will come up with something.

In addition to that honeycomb packing paper there are also cornstarch based peanuts that melt with water. Need more options and to increase usage.

I think a lot of shippers like Amazon are reducing the amount of shipping material, including plastic. If you look at some of the photos and reviews on Amazon for the products, you’ll notice as some complaints about things cracking and breaking because of the lack of packing material.

We try to recycle or reuse things bubble wrap. You can always reuse when you mailing something to somebody or just use it as a lampshade.

There’s one restaurant I get takeout food from sometimes and it’s hot food and they serve it in these good size Styrofoam clamshells. The recycling here does not use them or take them.

ed

Styrofoam is very difficult to recycle and isn't accepted in our kerbside collection. Single use Styrofoam, like take out containers, is now banned here, as are plastic cutlery and straws. Egg cartons are made of cardboard.

Well, it wasn't hard to find this Lisa. I did look further, and there is a possibility for greener ways to fly, but that is far into the future. I'd say, I agree with the article's assessment, but my BIAS is showing since it was my premise before I even looked. I admit it, I am biased. I am happy to continue driving places even though, I know it's in that bigger 27% portion of the carbon emissions. And fly every other year. I don't contribute that much to either portion since I work from home most of the time, and take very very few vacations.

Air travel accounts for 2.5% of global carbon emissions. In the US, flying accounted for 8% of transportation emissions, but less than 3% of total carbon emissions. It’s a drop in the bucket when compared to other industries in the United States:

• Transportation: 27%
• Electricity 25%
• Industry 24%
• Commercial/Residential 13%
• Agriculture 11%

So, when looking at the math, flying isn’t really the worst climate offender out there. There are far worse industries out there. Shouldn’t we focus on them?

Cutting down carbon emissions from flying isn’t going to make a big dent in total emissions.

If I can't do a lot, at least I can do a little. Every little bit helps.

Americans don't understand *public* anything -- health, transportation, housing, welfare, etc. We're also averse to anything Not Invented Here. We think we are so special, creating the most prosperous nation on earth -- while actually we were given unheard of resources. Only now are we beginning to see that there is an end to all that bounty -- any need to conserve. The rest of the First World knows a different reality.

To illustrate: We met an astounded Dutch couple at a wedding. This was their first visit to the states. They'd decided to drive from the east coast to this event in Santa Rosa, California. They could not imagine the scope of America, nor the amount of land still undeveloped. They'd gotten to Denver, then turned in the car and flew the rest of the way.

Right on, cyn - nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.

" nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something. "

My earlier point was that people who do positive little things and little else have really done nothing. And many also do negative bigger things and leave those out of conversations.

They're wrong to tout their "enlightened attitudes" when really they've stopped short of making a positive difference.

There are plenty of people with sincere concerns and motivation who find ways to be involved with efforts that have an impact. For me, it's a case of putting your conduct where your mouth is. Earn the right to talk the talk by setting an example. Half or incomplete efforts are shallow and phony.

Trust me, I know from experience. To believe even half of the things one hears of a politically correct nature in social settings in my area (which is rather blue and very environmentally conscious) you'd think that all of one's friends and neighbors are on the list for future canonization. The reality is quite otherwise. I suspect the same is true in other places too and also among comments made in this forum.

The hypocrisy is obvious and palpable.

I just read this thread top to bottom and I only see one person consistently demonstarting their ”enlightened attitudes”. I am sure we can all agree the problem with plastics will be solved eventually but not by cranky old folks on the internet. LOL

The solution could be Mycelium. They are making packing materials from mushrooms.

" I only see one person consistently demonstarting their ”enlightened attitudes” "

I hope you're not referring to me.

I'm demonstrating a normal BS detector, nothing more.

So do you want to be nothing ELmer? That in my estimation is where your are. You are not responsible. OK. But I do not believe you are not responsible. We are all responsible. Very few people are so stupid that they dont get why they are in fact responsible. Let's pretend though. I hated "lets pretend" as a child and still do.

patriciae

patricia, thanks for bringing the right phrase.

I'm against "Let's pretend". People here have done that. Don't point out little irrelevant things you do and pretend you're an environmental champion. A lot of little things adds up to a little total. That's not enough.

To those who think there are problems that need to be acted on aggressively, which I believe is the case, don't think you're doing your share because you wash plastic baggies to reuse them. But do nothing else. That's make believe. You need to do more.

Don't compost paper waste to keep it out of landfills, tell everyone what a good environmentalist you are, but do nothing else. If you care, you need to do more.

Don't pretend.

That's what I've been trying to highlight and your phrase helps me. Thanks.

I definitely try to avoid plastic when possible especially at the grocery store; for example, it's convenient to just grab the apples that are bagged up but I've changed to picking up the ones not in the bag

Recently, I was able to purchase yellow sungold tomatoes in the cardboard pint containers and so avoided the clamshell ones, even though those were multi-colored which also looked really good

So many peanut butter, oils, etc, are being sold in plastic these days and I always spend that extra minute or two to find the glass jars.

Our city has banned plastic bags at retail outlets which is good - those used to get into the trees and I've seen less of that...

Just a few examples of what I'm into :)

This is an interesting discussion :

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/41875/what-fallacy-argues-that-we-should-do-nothing-because-we-can-not-do-everything

I don't think hypocritical behavior, which I suspect each of us sometimes experiences and can usually identify, requires reference to theoretical philosophical principles to understand.

Interesting article lat62 - thanks for the link - I like this:

"How things are need not imply anything about how they should be, or what we should do."

Starfish Tale - no. Should I have? And don't call me Shirley. ;-), one of my favorite movie lines

There are a lot of parables in religious texts. Many adherents of certain sects who view such texts as being inerrant nevertheless pick and choose which to thump and which to ignore, as it suits them. That's hypocrisy of a similar kind to what I've seen in this forum.

Some of you, especially our friend from Florida, get too worked up trying anything and everything, whether sensible or not, to disagree with me, and stop looking at the road and drive into the weeds. I don't really have anything more to say

@lat62 what a great site and interesting article...so on point! Thanks for posting it. Logically fallacious - perfect!

One of the described speaks up. Predictably. Pick and choose principles. Only what’s personally convenient and easy, nothing too hard.