Pet peeves dujour

... including plastic grocery store bags.

What bugs me is plastic containers that have no identifying markings (like blister packs)... and... the fact that many plastic food containers have suddenly switched from # 1 and 2 over to a #5 plastic.

My gallon size orange juice jug even has both #2 and #5 on the bottom of the jug as well. Does that mean it is a blend or that it recycles as either/or one or the other type of plastic?

It annoys me on trash day when I put out one bag of garbage a week but see neighbors who put out 6 or 7 each and every single week. Even when I had a woman and 2 kids in the house the most we put out was 3 bags.

I heard the other day that if americans would recycle just 50% of their trash it would save the equivalent energy of 36 million cars on the road each year. Replace 1 incandescent light bulb with a florescent screw-in would be the same as 1.6 million cars worth of energy.

Almost every bulb in my house is a screw-in florescent except for a few appliance bulbs, the bulbs over the stove, and some 6 watt night lights. Even the sealed flood lights outside are low energy florescent. Those do take a few minutes to reach full brightness levels on a winters night

,,,,,, a couple of bags made of crocheted plastic that stretched well, and some cloth bags, all purchased in the 1970's to avoid the grocery store plastic and paper bags. Stores used to pack groceries in the cardboard boxes in which their shipments came. No more.

(I also have several real wooden orange crates from my newly married days. Which reminds me.... I sue miss the Velveeta that came in a wooden container.)

None of them held enough. I reckon they would be fine for people who shop every day just for the needs of one day. Or never buy milk by the gallon.

I admit I now carry my groceries in the store's plastic bags. I find tons of uses for those bags.

Angeline
Speakeasy Moderator

I use them for trash bags in the small trash cans around the house and church. I take the excess to the library for people to use when they have a lot of books. I also reuse them when I shop at Sam's and Aldi's that don't have bags.

Diana

This will be from 4 to 6 stations with a store attendant to provide assistance as needed including "carding" for alcohol purchases. I generally use these lanes. You can choose paper or plastic bags. I will mix them. The plastic bags are recycled in the grocery store if you collect and bring them back. I use them to hold other recyclables such as cans, bottles and and cardboard boxes and bring these to the recycling bins behind the store. Nothing needs to be presorted so you just toss in the whole bag and it's contents. We're even told it's not necessary to thoroughly clean out the cans and bottles and waste your own water as their equipment takes care of that. My gripe is that neither the paper or plastic bags are as strong as they once were. Those good old paper bags of long ago were sturdy. You could pick them up from the top without having to hold from the bottom and they would not tear. The new bags seem brittle. The plastic bags have gotten very thin and won't hold much so you need a lot of bags. They are convenient to carry as long as you don't try to hold 10 at once.

Of course we try to be green in small ways and then squander it all in others. We recently had a very small chemical spill in a local high school....amounting to less than 1 oz of a potentially toxic substance. This brought the HAZMAT squad (and they have big, heavy polluting trucks) and several heavily suited up specialists to investigate and clean up what could have been swept into a dust pan and discretely disposed of locally. Surely it was less of a hazard and waste of energy than the belching emergency vehicle and the 1/2 dozen or so sent to the spill site.

I recycle as much as i can. As for the plastic bags, I give those to the local Sal. Army shop where they re-use them again. Strange, the Goodwill store offers it own logoed plastic, I guess they have too much money. If not them, back to the grocery store and dump them into the large recycle station.

You know older shoppers do use their own bags and/or carts to bring back their shopping or groceries. That was very popular way back when, as shoppers did pay for bags when offered. I know I remember buying a few of those "paper handled bags" from a pay booth for $.10 back in the '60-70s. I hardly see anyone use personal carts anymore. -----Willy