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Saturday, February 09, 2008
Plastics
By now you've probably heard of the many ways plastic bags are the minions of Satan, made of polyethylene, a petroleum product, ending up in the landfills but also in our oceans where they look like food to turtles and other sea animals. We've bought cloth bags, but simply buying them doesn't really solve anything. We're still working on the implementing our new cloth bags. We tend to shop daily and we don't always have the cloth bags with us when we go. (Or perhaps I have them, but I'm home with the baby who isn't feeling well, and Eric can pick up food on his way home, but he doesn't have the cloth bags.) We're working on it. At the very least we have stopped throwing away the plastic bags, and are holding onto them to reuse, and most importantly, recycle soon at a store near us. City Council Passes Bill for Recycling of Plastic Bags The City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle plastic bags they give to shoppers. New York is by far the largest American city to enact so broad a measure to limit the environmental impact of the bags. Altogether, each year the country is estimated to use 86 billion bags, which end up blowing down city streets, or tangled in the stomachs of whales and sea turtles, or buried in landfills where, environmental organizations say, they persist for as long as 1,000 years. I think it's important to use the cloth bags, and we're working on being organized enough to do that. I look forward to soon being able to recycle the plastic bags we have now. Also, I have a special love for sea turtles. I had the opportunity to swim with a few in Hawaii when I was pregnant with our daughter. If I have a spiritual animal it may very well be the sea turtle. I understand not everyone feels that way. It doesn't really matter if I love sea turtles or not. At some point it goes beyond sea turtles, and even the ways that their lives effect the ecosystem at large, even back to my own household. Carrying my new goods home every day in plastic bags, never giving a thought to where they go when I am done or how disposable they really are is a symptom of living unconsciously, just one of the many ways I've been wandering through life asleep. I'd like to wake up for a while and see where that leads. In other plastic news, I've been turning over all my cartons, looking for the numbers in the recycling symbol before realizing that for curbside recycling in New York, the numbers don't matter. New York will only take plastic containers where the neck is smaller than the bottle. I didn't really take this in, even though I posted recycling info below. So what can I do with my recyclable plastics with good numbers (or bad) that aren't so shapely? And what do good plastic and bad plastic numbers mean? I kind of know, and I have a vague sense of places that might take them, but I don't know really. I'll try to look into that and get back to you. Sunday, January 20, 2008
Wide Open Spaces
You might have heard that we had a baby, and ever since the apartment has just gotten smaller and smaller. A few weeks ago Eric rented a storage space for those things that we really will want to save for the day when we might have more space or another baby (!) but no longer need at the moment. However, I don't want this new space to just become a place to put our garbage so we can buy new garbage (as I say garbage in the most endearing way, I love my garbage!) At the same time I'm all about decluttering. I think it's vital to my well being and the well being of my family. I have space to think in a room that is filled with less stuff. Becoming a mom is turning me into a person with the desire to be a minimalist, but with the reality of carrying three times more things around me with every move I make. Here is some of the things we have been doing and I hope to do with all our stuff. Clothes and some appliances (the juicemaker?) will go to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Old computers and an old television set were dropped off at Build It Green. We have more electronics to pass along. Left to our own devices we tend to just hold onto these things for years. I think this is a great program if you live in New York. They will wipe your hard drives clean, or you can do it yourself with one of the free programs they mention on the site. Here's a list of what they accept: Working and non-working: New York has curbside recycling. We have been diligently recycling our cans, glass, and plastic for years, but we have not been recycling our paper. We don't take a newspaper, I read it online, and I was frankly ignorant of the rules, so we haven't been taking advantage of that. Here are the rules for recycling in NYC from the National Resources Defense Council. You can also read about them at the NYC Wastele$$ site. Paper: Yes Metal Glass, and Plastic: Yes See, I didn't know that milk cartons were recycled with the plastic bottles. We've cleaned out our pantry and are getting rid of the small amounts of latex paint we were saving for touch ups that will never happen. NYCWastele$$ also provides information fro recycling and donating latex paint. You can find out about recycling in your area by visiting Earth 911. Labels: Declutter, Green, Recycle, Reduce, Reuse |
