Stopping plastic pollution at the source..nearly

[richg99]

I always thought that the problem with paper bags and cardboard was you had to chop down a ton of trees to make them. The trees, when living, produce oxygen and take out Carbon Dioxide.

I might be wrong.

 

[GTS225]

Warning! Long post!
This is circulating the 'net, and is not my words, but seems appropriate for this thread.
Forgive me if it seems off-topic.

Roger


Being Green
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future
generations."She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in our day.Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.

So they really were recycled.But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person...

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off...especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced know it all who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

 

[richg99]

Nice write up.

But, hey, I remember doing almost every one of those things. Some parts of OLD are good.

 

[handyandy]

Ha good write up GTS225. Some valid points like I've said to many people, in many ways we should go back in order to go forward. Such as many of your examples of back in the day when you had to return bottles to get reused vs the trillions of throw away plastic bottles we don't have a good way or recycling or reusing in many case. Outta go to returnable/refundable plastic bottles would prevent the broken glass that many people hate about glass containers. The packing material pisses me off too, so much plastic from plastic wrap, bubble wrap, and I hate the packing peanuts darn things always go everywhere when you try and get your crap out from the box it was shipped in with them. We may be an exception to our generation, but my wife and I only have one tv in the house. Granted it's a large 40" LED flat screen, not your tiny screen giant box tv. The plus side to the tvs the LED ones consume far less than the tv's of back in the day. I can agree it's pretty crazy for how short of distances people go at times that they always use their car. The diaper thing is another one, my wife and I are expecting we were debating on cloth diapers, but in our rural area it's hard to find any place that offers them. I know my mom used a diaper service when my sister and I were diapers that picked up the dirty ones and left clean ones. If we could find something like that we'd use it. Not sure with both of us working how much we care to be washing diapers all the time. Once again in many ways we should go back to how we did things in many instances in order to go forward, maybe go back with some modern advances made to old ways.

Rich yes we cut down trees for paper/cardboard, but with so many things that use to be done on paper being digital now, paper use has been cut back a lot. That and paper and cardboard are one of the easier things to make back into paper or cardboard again. I'm not an expert on it but a lot of paper/cardboard comes from recycled paper/cardboard, and paper pulp made from waste wood, and farmed trees. Much of my cardboard/paper waste is now getting used to start fires and heat my shop. It's at least getting reused for something useful vs decomposing in a land fill.

A different note I wish our government would be less worried about CO2 emissions and more worried about or waste.

 

[LDUBS]

Plastic bottles are redeemable. But, back in the day we could take our empties to any grocery store. Today most people won't go out of their way to hassle with a recycle center, if they can even find one. Got to be a better idea out there just waiting for someone to come up with it.

 

[richg99]

Might be "redeemable" in CA. but not in many other States.

Economics drives many decisions. IMHO, unless a State decides to play Big Brother and force the seller/manufacturer to add a cost to the purchase, and then refund some or all of the additional cost when someone brings the bottle back in...it isn't going to be cost effective for a store to redeem and store the empties.

Redemption may well be the right thing to do, but most States aren't going to pass legislation that their constituents do not support. I do not know how anyone can force common sense on a society that throws way just about everything.

I've read of some progress being made with new bio-degradable plastics. If "they" could perfect that, it would go along way towards solving the problem.

 

[LDUBS]

Now that you mention I suspect they are not likely to have redemption value in most states. Even in CA, you can't return the bottles to the place you bought them. You have to take them to a recycle center and a lot of those have closed down. Nearest one to me is 9 miles and I doubt that the majority of my neighbors would even know where it is.

For a lot of people even at 5 cents per plastic bottle it is just too inconvenient to take them in for redemption. For me the trip to the recycle place is like a free haircut every once in a while.

BTW, I have 9 of the small plastic water bottles in my freezer. I toss them in the ice chest when I'm heading out and back into the freezer when I get home. Kind of like big reusable ice cubes.

 

[richg99]

At my TN place, we do not have curbside recycling. We accumulate plastic, metal, paper etc. and drop it off at a recycling center (no money/no refunds) about once a week.

In TX, we have curbside recycling.... but.... they CHARGE US for the privilege of having us separate our garbage for them. Most of us do not pay for the privilege, but rather take out stuff to recycling bins, available at most of the schools nearby. However, those bins have now disappeared, so we'll have to find another way to do the right thing.

They are just making it harder to do the recycling.

 

[GTS225]

In Iowa, we have a "bottle bill", that benefits all of us, at least in general. It applies to carbonated drinks, along with beers, wines and harder alcoholic drinks. We pay a nickle per container at purchase time, and get that nickle back when we return the bottle or can. Many grocery outlets have automatic machines that we feed the container into, and they're specific to glass, plastic, or cans. It used to be that the store took them in by hand and got a penny for each one. I assume that wasn't cost effective, so the machines were brought around. I suppose it's now the machine supplier that gets that cent per container.

We do have a limited number of recycling dumpsters around, and there used to be more, but a problem with those is that folks would dump everything there. It was not uncommon to see bags of garbage, furniture, and old tv's setting alongside the dumpsters, when they were meant for newspapers, plastics and metals. Now the dumpsters that are around, are monitored with cameras to stop the dumping.

Personally, I have a hard time agreeing with "required" recycling.
My thoughts are that I paid for that package with my money, so it's mine to do with as I see fit. If a recycler wants it, then he should have to pay me for it, instead of requiring that I put more labor into rinsing and sorting, and they get the monetary benefit of my free labor. It's basic business, and I shouldn't be forced to do someone else's bidding.

If we really wanted to stop the plastic pollution problem it's just a legislative move away. Individual states can outlaw plastic containers entirely, or come up with a bottle bill to alleviate the issue. It will never happen, though, as big business will throw a huge tantrum over the packaging costs, and they have more political weight to throw around than the average citizen that will also bemoan the increase in everyday costs of the products they use.

Roger

 

[LDUBS]

In Calif out of $100 million in CRV deposits collected, $46 million goes towards "administration" of the program, meaning a state bureaucracy that isn't very effective or productive. Additionally, the millions going to "consultant" type folks is astounding.

In Calif, the amount of bottles actually being recycled continues to decline, meaning more going to the landfill. Not too hard to see that the system is not working too well.

BTW, the bottle deposit in California is not a "deposit". It is legally defined as a "regulatory fee". Why you might ask? Well, because you can't charge sales tax for a deposit but you sure can for a regulatory fee.

The whole thing is a bunch of fairy tale hooey in my humble opinion.

 

[handyandy]

In Calif out of $100 million in CRV deposits collected, $46 million goes towards "administration" of the program, meaning a state bureaucracy that isn't very effective or productive. Additionally, the millions going to "consultant" type folks is astounding.

In Calif, the amount of bottles actually being recycled continues to decline, meaning more going to the landfill. Not too hard to see that the system is not working too well.

BTW, the bottle deposit in California is not a "deposit". It is legally defined as a "regulatory fee". Why you might ask? Well, because you can't charge sales tax for a deposit but you sure can for a regulatory fee.

The whole thing is a bunch of fairy tale hooey in my humble opinion.

Thats crappy, I'm not for forced recycling, but the bottle bill type thing I would be for. I remember the summer I was in detroit it was kind of a good time when my buddy and I took our bags of beer cans to the store to the machine you fed them through usually ended up with enough money from it to go in and buy another case of beer haha. Indiana has no such thing at all I get money from my aluminum cans cause I take them to the scrapper whenever I haul off old parts and crap that have accumulated from shop work. I just get the scrap aluminum price per pound of whatever the going rate is. Around town I always see the less fortunate and possibly druggie people walking around picking up cans or anything else they can take to the scrapper in town. If plastic bottles had a monetary value to they would actually pick them up too idk. Interesting video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK20t11He14

 

[LDUBS]

That video is pretty sobering. Need a real solution, which will probably need to include elimination of some of this stuff like plastic grocery bags altogether. Maybe water bottles have to be a minimum of a gallon or something. I'm pretty sure smarter minds than mine can come up with the answer. The one thing I know is it will not be popular and there will be a lot of resistance.

 

[richg99]

When I go to the grocery store, I bag my own stuff. I come home with one or two bags. If I let the checker bag my stuff, I come home with six or seven bags.

Some of the nonsense could be stopped with some common sense. Just ask..."may I combine your items?" Problem solved!

 

[LDUBS]

No paper, plastic or cardboard boxes for us. We keep those light canvass bags along with one of those larger insulated bags in each of our two vehicles. Not really inconvenient at all.

 

[richg99]

Three posts from new "members", all in London, and all on the same day, and all for a three-year-old post. Methinks its the same poster with 3 identities.

I wonder what --it--has for us next???

richg99

 

[Jim]

Gone! :roll:

 

[richg99]

I think one is still left.