Friday, September 4, 2015

September 4

Today I threw out: this plastic banana bag. Could this trash have been avoided? Yep, I bet there are supermarkets in my neighborhood that sell bunches of bananas not in bags. Will think about this. What I didn't throw out: the two edge-of-overripeness bananas that were left (they went into the food processor and then the freezer for smoothie ice pops) and the peels and stems (compost).


Also: this plastic yogurt container from Fairway (see above re: smoothie ice pops). Mini-rant: why is it so hard to find full-fat yogurt? When will Big Yogurt come around to the "fat is good" movement? 
Okay, digression over. Could this trash have been avoided? Well, I could have not made smoothie ice pops, but that seems extreme. The obvious trash avoidance possibility here is recycling the plastic container (I did recycle the foil top), but here I must avoid: I am agnostic on plastic recycling. First of all, I heard somewhere many years ago that only plastic that says "1" or "2" inside the recycling arrow is recyclable, and I've been treating it as gospel ever since (this container says "6"). But why do they even have a recycling arrow there if it isn't recyclable? The other distressing thing I have heard is that once oil prices go down, it is no longer cost-efficient to recycle plastic, and it all ends up in the landfill anyway. Can someone please tell me if I could have/should have recycled this yogurt container?

ETA: I guess I could have also made my own yogurt, which is something people do. Much respect to home yogurt-makers. 

One last thing that bothers me about plastic recycling: how clean does it have to be? My moisturizer comes out through a little pinhole in the top of the bottle—will the last bits of moisturizer clinging to the inside ruin everything? This whole thing feels impossible to navigate.


I also realized today that a couple of trash habits are so ingrained that they don't even register, and I haven't been noting them. 

1 – Cleaning out the drain catcher post-dishwashing—that goes directly into the trash, even though it could/should go into the compost.
2 – Using disposable facial cleansing cloths as part of my nighttime toilette. I just really, really hate washing my face with my hands and dripping water down my elbows. I do use the cloths to wipe down the sink afterward, so maybe on some level that mitigates the wastefulness.

Also, happy to say that based on Emily's comment, I composted a peach pit today with no fear of overfertilized peach trees coming for me next summer...

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