Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Garbage Challenge Blues – Battle with the Plastic

Jane and I have hit a snag with our garbage challenge. I was naïve. I thought the city of Toronto would graciously accept all the plastic bags that we’ve accumulated over the year through its Community Environment Days. Somehow the city would find some facility to recycle them, so I thought. The City does recycle plastic grocery bags, but not the vegetable, bread or freezer bags. We’ve reused these bags many times, but it gets to a point when they get a little disgusting despite multiple washings.

So we were stuck with an enormous bag of plastic. With a heavy heart, I put out the bag for garbage pick up this week. Rather than sending only four bags to the landfill this year, we are sending five.

Plastic bag, you think you got the best of me. Think again!

We have a new rule. No plastic vegetable and bread bags. No matter what. When we go shopping we bring out canvas bags and the following:

Reused Plastic Containers
Jane and I are big on bulk but the bulk section provides the dreaded plastic bag as the receptacle. When we go shopping we now take plastic containers and fill them up at the bulk section. We weigh them at the checkout station prior to filling them to avoiding paying for the container.

Mesh Gags
At the Carrot Common, we bought a $1 assortment of mesh bags to collect vegetables.

In the News

'Earth 2100': Is this the Final Century of Our Civilization?
ABC aired this program last night. It offered a frightening insight into what life will be like in the United States during this century if we do little to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change odds much worse than thought

First, there was expensive oil
Finally mainstream media is starting to pay attention.

1 comment:

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Chris