How To Cut Back On Single Use Plastics

There’s a lot of hype around banning plastic straws, and I understand if straws aren’t the first thing you connect with plastic pollution.

Bird carcasses full of plastic bottle caps, marine life entangled in six-pack rings, or one of the many plastic garbage islands in the ocean usually come to mind well before a flimsy plastic tube.

It’s a lot more than an item or two, however- single use plastics, which include straws, stirrers, bags, food wrappers and utensils among others, all contribute to the problem.

In the recycling world, these items are all considered contamination- the only plastics getting any attention from recycling facilities are HDPE plastic bottles.

That’s right- only a fraction of the stuff you put in the recycling bin actually ends up getting recycled, which came into focus recently via the Philadelphia incineration article (did you start composting yet?).

Plastics have a price like anything else- they’ve been at the bottom of the oil barrel for awhile which is why recycling incentives are scarce and they get fed to incinerators.

Burn plastic?  Brilliant!  Seems responsible, doesn’t it?

It’s easy to feel powerless about our waste issues, but there are some simple things you can do to cut down on your overall footprint.

STRAWS:
At home, get one or two metal straws and use those- it’s a nice touch and they’ll last until you lose them (don’t do that).

When you’re out for a drink or a bite to eat, simply tack “no straw please” onto the end of your sentence. It feels corny at first, but it’s really not a big deal.

For the service industry folks reading this- you have the ability to call the shots here- instead of serving drinks with a straw… don’t.

Keep the straws behind the bar.

The patron opts in rather than opting out… that’s it.

Business saves money, patron consumes beverage, less plastic is consumed.

What about other types of straws?

Glass straws look great and they’re inert… thumbs up.  Just don’t break them.

Paper straws are made from paper- not my top choice, but at least they can be composted.  Don’t count on them being collected properly in a recycling sorting facility, though.

Compostable straws don’t really change the issue- they’re more expensive, they need an industrial-scale hot composting environment, and those facilities don’t want compostable plastics anyway.

And that’s for good reason, too- just like regular plastics, they break down into smaller pieces and make it right through the screens into the finished compost.

BAGS:
We’re long overdue on ending plastic bags.

Two options: Tax them, or ban them.

Bags should be a unique question, not the customer service standard.

I’ll receive a bag when buying a single thing if I don’t quickly say “no bag please”… I always laugh and give it back, and usually the cashier understands.

“You’d be surprised how many people want a bag…”

I think it’s important to react like this to help sell the point that there’s no need to offer a bag for stuff I can carry in my hands or put in my pockets.

When you get your breakfast/lunch/dinner during work in a plastic bag, how far do you go before tossing it?

Maybe a few hundred paces at the most before eating and throwing away the bag (and the clamshell, utensils, the stack of napkins you didn’t need, etc).

The life of the bag is a matter of minutes before it ends up in a trash can… or until it falls out of the can and into the sewer drain.

The best solution here is to grab a reusable bag like a Chicobag.

They’re smaller than your fist, and will easily attach to a belt loop, fit in a purse or in the glove compartment.

It comes in handy when my groceries don’t all fit in my backpack, or I have to make an unexpected stop somewhere to grab something that doesn’t fit in a coat pocket.

UTENSILS:
At the job, keep a set of utensils handy.

Take-out food: Evaluate what you’re actually using. Give the utensils, napkins and sauce packets back.

For the Grubhubbers- when’s the last time you ticked the box saying “No utensils- I’m trying to save the earth” and still got utensils anyway?  Every time?

It should be reversed- tick the box on Grubhub to say you want plastic utensils…who would do that?

Presumably, you’re having food sent to your house, right?

…Don’t you have utensils in the kitchen?

STIRRERS:
Personally, I’ve never used one before… if I’m drinking crappy coffee that requires sugar or creamer, I dump that in first, then fill my tumbler with coffee.

It mixes itself.  What’s the stirrer for, again?

I think you get the point here.

What is the point?

Plastics are toxic, and aren’t necessary for every application imaginable.

Eliminate one piece at a time from your daily grind- I can’t promise it’ll be extremely gratifying, but it’s a responsible way to cut back on unnecessary trash that negatively affects everything around us.

Trash Less by Composting Your Shredded Paper.

If you have an all-in-one single stream recycling program, chances are your shredded paper isn’t getting recycled due to its size- it falls through the gaps in the machinery.

Skip ahead in the video below to 3:34…

Shredded paper has a 100% chance in your backyard compost pile, however- just be sure to keep the plastic windows from envelopes from getting in.

Although shredded paper by itself won’t propel a compost bin, it’s a welcome addition in small amounts.

Give it a shot!

China to WTO: Scrap plastic imports banned by year-end (article)

http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170718/NEWS/170719892/china-to-wto-scrap-plastic-imports-banned-by-year-end

 

How should we adapt to this?  Who’s going to take all our crap now?

For starters, “I compost” needs to be the new “I recycle”.

I’m predicting a heavy P.R. push for more incineration, too.

Better Big Bellies In Philly? Yes Please.

Over the last few months, I’ve developed a habit of taking pictures of Big Bellies in sorry shape.

Philly has quite the love/hate relationship with them, but the bottom line is that they do a better job of collecting waste than wire baskets ever could.

The Big Belly compactors absolutely cut down on trucks on the road, bags used, and labor time…that is, if the program is being managed correctly.

According to this  2013 Syracuse article featuring Alan Butkovitz, that’s exactly the problem, and he’s still complaining about it nearly three years later in this CBS article, too.

He has a point- if they’re not being consistently maintained according to plan, you’ll get overflowing units everywhere.  If they’re being pulled too soon, that’s not optimal either.

I tend to side with Carlton Williams at this point- maybe Butkovitz’s concerns were legit in 2013, but hopefully they’ve been corrected since then?  I guess that’s the question.

Williams says they’re still saving the city $650,000 a year, which does sound like a low figure.  That all depends on what the calculation is based on- I would imagine it includes reduced labor, fuel, materials and recyclable material value.

The wireless network issue mentioned in the article is a real disappointment- this would definitely lead to missed service resembling my pictures at the top.

At that point, however, you’d just have to guesstimate how often to make your runs and you’re potentially losing the benefits of the system.

The good news going forward is that Philadelphia is about add 275 brand new units with the foot pedal upgrade- this will definitely encourage more usage.

The old Philly units actually favor contaminating the recycling due to the receptacle being an open void- no compaction, no grimy handle to worry about.

I have quite a bit of experience with auditing collected materials from the newer units, and the compliance due to making both receptacles designed the same is near-perfect.

In today’s lousy recyclables market, the potential reduced contamination can only help the city generate quality material and hopefully increase rebates.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the recent CBS article is the free maintenance/free of charge upgrade in exchange for free reign of advertising on them.

I really like the city units that have the mural art designs on them- it’ll be interesting to watch what Big Belly ends up doing with the ad space…Coca Cola and some lame PA oil/gas propaganda?

I hope the ads won’t be on the front side, at least… the city needs that space to specify what goes in each.

Whether you like them or not, they are the best way to collect waste in a public setting.

I’m happy that the city is upgrading the units and you should be, too.

Waste of the Week #24: Grand Canyon Mule Feeding

The single stream cut-out is good, but then the other two are rectangles.

The compost category is interesting- only fruits and veggies… no hamburgers or ice cream.  What’s that all about?

Maybe they have a vermicomposting system on site and they’re keeping it simple for the worms?

Nope- the food scraps are fed to the mules that work in the Grand Canyon Lodges!  The sharp-looking Xanterra website has all the details.

Known as Operation Shrivelly Apples, the program keeps food scraps out of the landfill, feeds the mules that make the daily trip down to the bottom and back, and creates manure which is processed into compost.

Yep- pretty awesome.

I do wonder how much sifting they end up doing, because while I hung around there, I saw stuff getting thrown every which way.

In my experience though, this is kind of how it goes with public collection stations… it takes time for people to interpret the goals of the collection program, let alone know what goes where, and lastly, decide to comply with the request.

More people have heard about composting in the last few years as more cities begin organics collection programs, which is great, but hearing about it and doing it are two different things.

Don’t wait for your city to offer composting collection- start it up yourself.

Putting stuff in the blue bin can’t be where the overall effort stops anymore.

Onward we push…

Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community

The following comes from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (www.ilsr.org), a national nonprofit organization working to strengthen local economies, and redirect waste into local recycling, composting, and reuse industries. It is reprinted here with permission.

ILSR comes through with yet another killer infographic demonstrating the clear need for source reduction and composting over trashing and burning.

New report from GAIA!

GAIA just dropped a killer new report on the perils of incineration.

We already know how bad incinerators (pyrolysis, gasification, waste-to-energy) are in terms of the pollutants they spew out, but this report appeals even to the conservative bean counters.

Yes, incinerators are the most expensive high-risk solution to dealing with waste.  Stop supporting them.

They compete with recycling and composting programs, both of which are more cost effective and practical solutions that even create more jobs than incineration.

Here’s the press release:

Berkeley, U.S. — A new risk analysis from GAIA finds that companies promoting “waste-to-energy” projects like gasification and pyrolysis have a 30-year track record of failures and unfulfilled promises. After decades of industry promising a solution that both manages waste and produces energy, the vast majority of proposed plants were never built or were shut down.

“The global spotlight on marine plastic pollution has led to increasing proposals for technological solutions. But it’s important that investors recognize these processes do not work as promised and  set us back in developing real solutions,” says report author Monica Wilson.

According to the report Gasification and Pyrolysis: A high risk, low yield investment, “the potential returns on waste gasification are smaller and more uncertain, and the risks much higher, than proponents claim.” Billions of dollars of investments have been wasted on unsuccessful ventures in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, United States and Germany, to name a few. In 2016, the failed UK project by U.S.-based Air Products lost $1 billion alone.

Many gasification projects that started operations, have closed after failing to meet projected energy generation, revenue generation, and emission requirements. Despite decades of opportunity the industry has not resolved these problems. Other projects have failed in the proposal stage — after raising significant investments — due to community opposition and government scrutiny into false and exaggerated claims.

Gasification plants have sought public subsidies to  be profitable — particularly from  feed-in tariffs. However, these facilities would regularly burn fossil fuel-sourced material including plastic waste and coal, contradicting the purpose of “renewable energy.”

Over 100 major environmental organizations released a public letter in February stating that “We are deeply concerned by the promotion of feed-in-tariffs and other renewable energy subsidies for gasification, incineration, and the use of plastics as fuel.”

The report concludes that municipal zero waste programs relying on source separation, recycling,composting, and redesign of no-value products have demonstrated economic and technical success.

Check out the full report by clicking here.