Where plastic recyclables really go
For the last two months, Mark's been inventing
a pretty cool chicken waterer. (More on that in a couple of
weeks.) Since I was raised on the mantra "reduce, reuse,
recycle", I wanted to make the main portion of the waterers out of
reused plastic containers. This worked great in the planning
stages, with leftover dish detergent and squeeze honey bottles which
we'd squirreled away in the barn making great test models.
But as the time nears for us to introduce Mark's waterer to the general
public, we realized that we needed a larger and more consistent source
of plastic bottles.
"Let's call the closest recycling centers and ask if we can pick
through their plastic and take some bottles home," I suggested.
So Mark
called...and called...and called. Strangely enough, all six
recycling centers within a 50 mile radius didn't recycle plastic.
I wandered online and soon learned that plastic recycling is largely a
myth. Since there are so many kinds of plastics (all of which
have to be hand sorted) and so little demand for recycled plastic
resin, very little plastic is actually recycled in the U.S.
Instead, most of those bins of carefully sorted plastic bottles end up
in the landfill or the incinerator.
More and more, recycling has begun to feel like a green bandaid stuck
over our eyes, a way to keep us from feeling guilty as we consume our
earth into destruction. So, in the vein of the Crunchy
Domestic Goddess's Ditch the Disposables Challenge, I've listed
below the disposables I've already ditched or want to try to ditch in
the foreseeable future. I highly recommend you play along at
home!
| Out
with the old disposables |
In
with the new reusables |
| Plastic
water bottles |
Metal
or safe plastic water bottles |
| Plastic
grocery bags |
Cloth grocery
bags |
| Disposable
sanitary pads |
Cloth
sanitary pads |
| Paper
napkins and towels |
Cloth napkins and
towels |
| Plastic
storage and sandwich bags |
Reusable
containers |
| Swiffer |
Broom
and mop |
| Endless
plastic food packaging |
Buying
in bulk or fresh |
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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