Millions and billions and trillions of glasses

I went to a movie and was handed a plastic bag with 3D glasses. The glasses were nicer than the old cardboard variety, but I was mildly annoyed by the plastic bag. Why are plastic glasses wrapped in plastic?

After the movie, movie-goers can drop the glasses into a cardboard box for recycling. Recycling? Glasses that were worn once are melted down to make new glasses? Seems silly. After my conversation with the theatre staff went nowhere (was I really the first person to ask about the recycling?), I tried the Web.

The Internets revealed that every day some 700,000 Real-D glasses are shipped to a cleaning facility in LA where they’re sanitized, repackaged and shipped back to the theatres (not sure why this is called recycling, but perhaps reusing or washing doesn’t sound sexy?)

Some smaller companies handle the 3D glasses differently. Dolby, for example, has 3D glasses and they suggest that theatre owners buy something called a dishwasher. The glasses are washed onsite and reused. Simple.

I hope that more theatres will install dishwashers (and use compostable food containers).

In the meantime, I took my 3D glasses home to save for my next thrilling 3D experience (no shipping or repackaging needed).

Are 3D movies here to stay?

“There are hundreds of glasses, thousands of glasses, millions and billions and trillions of 3D glasses.”

Maybe I’m old school, but I like regular ol’ 2D. No special glasses required.

[Wiki sayz: Millions of Cats is the oldest American picture book still in print (1926).]

Less paper, more trees

Since starting my new job last April, I haven’t printed anything.

Everything I do is digital. I write, edit, and publish words online using my computer. Everything I need is in one place: on my beloved laptop. I love the simplicity of a paperless office.

Here are a few paper saving tips:

• Print or write on both sides of the paper. Save old printouts for reprinting or note taking. 
• Before you click print, stop what you’re doing, drop to the floor and roll. While rolling, think do I really need to print this? 
• If while rolling on the floor you decide you really need to print, use print preview so there are no surprises. 
• Print just what you need and not the whole caboodle. Every page you don’t print counts.
• Take notes online with software like Evernote or OneNote.
• Go digital. Books, magazines, and newspapers are available online.
• Find something you want to read later? Bookmark it, add the page to your Favorites, or use Evernote.
• Buy recycled paper. Buying recycled products helps create a market for recycled paper.

If you follow these tips you’ll save money and trees.  

How about you? How little can you print?

4.7 pounds a day

As part of the No Impact Experiment, I moved my kitchen trash can to my garage. My thought was that the extra walk to the garage would heighten my awareness of what we’re throwing away.

Our week’s trash (family of 3):

Our trash was largely what I thought it would be: Plastic.

We recycled more than usual and continued composting our food scraps. I finally called Allied Waste (my local recycler) to get my recycling questions answered.

What did I learn?

• No lids whatsoever. In the past I recycled large plastic lids if they had a number on them, but apparently this was wrong (oops!). No lids.
• Most plastic bags can’t be recycled. Ziploc type bags, food bags, and even bags inside cereal boxes can’t be recycled. This is disappointing. I had hoped that plastic bag recycling had moved beyond shopping and produce bags, but it hasn’t. Since I can’t recycle most plastic bags, I try to avoid them or reuse them.
• Shredded paper can be recycled if put in a transparent plastic bag and tied at the top. This differs from a neighboring city which has you put shredded paper in a paper bag with your yard waste.

Every city has it’s own rules and regs, so it’s best to contact your local recycling company and get your questions answered.

Since so much plastic can’t be recycled, I’ve reduced the amount of plastic that I buy. Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish has lots of ideas on how you can avoid buying plastic. Beth tracks her plastic waste on a monthly basis (4.7 ounces this month). It’s remarkable how little plastic she wastes.

Our trash can is still in the garage. I’m thinking I might put a tiny trash recepticle under the kitchen sink. However, I rather enjoy hearing my daughter explain to guests why there’s no trash can in the kitchen.

The average American throws away 4.7 pounds of trash a day.

I’m working to be below average in this department.

How about you?

Raising our trash-consciousness

According to Colin Beavan of No Impact Man fame, 80% of what we produce is made to be used once, which means that 80% of the resources on our planet are going to a landfill. 80%.

Even if this statistic is inflated (the percentage may be closer to 67%), compare our culture today to say 100 years ago, and few would disagree that our society has become overly disposable. Our current high-impact lifestyle is not sustainable.

What can you do?

Take a look at your trash.

What are you throwing away? This week is National Zero Waste Week – a campaign aimed at reducing the amount of household trash produced. To participate, take a look at your trash to see what you can do to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost as much as possible.

I’ve worked to reduce my household trash the past few months. What remains? Plastic. My trash is largely a collection of plastic food bags and containers. What can I do to reduce my trash?  

I can…

• Stop buying food products wrapped in plastic, or at least not plastic that can’t be recycled
• Stop using plastic baggies in my kids’ lunches – switching to Lunch Bots and reusable snack bags

What can you do to reduce your household trash?

Need inspiration and ideas on how to reduce your household trash? Jump over to Mrs. Green excellent blog: My Zero Waste.

Remember the story about the guy (Ari Derfel) who saved his trash for a year? I love the tagline on Ari Derfel’s blog:

On average, 60 squares a day

The average American uses about 60 squares of toilet paper each day or 20,000 squares per year. The number of rolls per person is harder to pin down because all rolls are not equal. Toilet Paper Roll Standardization (TPRS) failed miserably a few years back.

Toilet paper manufacturers estimate that an average roll lasts about five days, or 73 rolls per year. 5 days per roll? I haven’t monitored my household’s toilet paper use, but Josh Madison recorded his toilet paper consumption for a year. He used 49 rolls of toilet paper (49,000 squares) at a cost of $52.43. He meticiously documented the life of each roll with start and end dates. The level of detail is simply amazing.

While I’m not ready to document my toilet paper usage (I’m already documenting my food waste), I have made a couple consumption changes.

1. Using recycled toilet paper – don’t worry Mom, it’s safe! Using recycled toilet paper reduces my usage of virginal wood pulp – creative marketing phrase from Seventh Generation. Somehow recycled toilet paper is magically whitened without the use chlorine or dyes.
2. Using less  I’m using a few less squares at each bathroom trip. I’m trying to treat toilet paper like a precious resource, instead of mindlessly grabbing a handful of squares. Maybe a trip to India would help?

Does recycled toilet paper cost more?

Not really. At Safeway, I found an eco brand called Bright Green. The price? Six rolls of Bright Green is 3.99, or 13.7 cents per square yard. This price is not that outrageous compared to non-virginal wood pulp toilet paper (the regular stuff).

The cheapest toilet paper I found was Scott 100 at 7.9 cents per square yard, and the most expensive was a luxurious Charmin variety at 32.7 cents per square yard. Because Toilet Paper Roll Standardization (TPRS) never happened, unit pricing is crucial so that you’re comparing apples to apples.

Is recycled toilet paper safe?

Yes recycled toilet paper is safe and NO recycled toilet paper isn’t brown. Recycled toilet paper looks just like regular toilet paper – it’s WHITE and a little less soft. I found the brown toilet paper at RecycledToiletPaper.com; an entertaining history of recycled toilet paper (RTP). I didn’t know toilet paper was recycled from the sewer and carefully laid out to dry. I imagine it’s a delicate process (wink). 

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council: “If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees.”

Do you use recycled toilet paper? Do you lay yours out in the sun or just buy it at the store? Please leave a Comment.

The life of glass: One million years

I’ve always been a fairly rabid recycler. I’ve been known to bring home glass when recycling wasn’t available, or spend five minutes rinsing out glass jars. Recently, I came across a ‘recycling factoid’ that motivates me to continue hauling home glass and rinsing out containers.

Glass bottles can take up to a million years to breakdown. A million years! That has to be one of the longer life spans on the planet.

So how are we doing glass recycling wise? According to the EPA, 28% of all glass containers were recycled in 2007. By comparison, 50% of aluminum cans are recycled in the United States. So we could be doing a little better.

Bottle recycling rates are higher - 34% of glass beer and soft drink bottles are recycled. In California, glass bottle recycling is nearly 79%. Nice!

What can you do?

• When you’re in a public place without recycling, consider hauling home glass. You can leave a trash bag in the trunk of your car for such things.
• The next time you consider trashing a glass container, reconsider.

I thought about throwing out the smaller jar pictured above. It had some icky sticky cheesy sauce inside it. I didn’t want to take the time to rinse the jar. But then… I thought about the glass sitting in a landfill for a million years, instead of being recycled into a new glass container. One million years. Nope, can’t do it. I tipped the jar upside down in my sink and later ran hot water into the jar. It only took a few minutes and now I’m glad I saved the jar.

It takes as little as 30 days for recycled glass to go from your recycling bin to a new glass container. Much better than sitting in a landfill for a million years. So go ahead save jars and bottles!

Are you a ribid recycler? Do you have a recycling story to share? Please leave a Comment.

Calling all Americans: We need to recycle more glass

Recession bright spot: We’re creating less trash

I enjoy reading positive news stories about our current recession. The eternal optimist in me seeks out these stories. Instead of gloom and doom stories, I love to read about the silver lining, the upside, the bright spots. So you can imagine my delight when I read the following in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

 

For the second year in a row, the amount of waste generated in the United States has gone down, according to a new report from the consulting firm Waste Business Journal. The decline in 2007 – from 513 million tons to 508 million – was the first in more than 20 years, said James Thompson, the firm’s president. In 2008, the tally fell further, to 505 million tons. (From the article entitled One result of the recession: Less trash)

Wow! This is a definite upside to our current economic malaise. Apparently these results are not related to fastidious recycling, but rather consumers throwing less into their trash cans. Many Americans are feeling pinched, earning less money, consuming less, and as a result are generating less trash. This is fantastic news – however, I’d be more excited if the dip in trash production was due to Americans choosing to consume less, instead of being forced to consume less due to less income.

What happens when the economy improves? Will Americans go back to business as usual? Can we create less trash even in the face of economic expansion? I hope so.

As in recessionary times, I hope we continually question our purchases and prevent trash by buying less. We need to change our have-it-now, chuck-it-tomorrow society. OK, I’ll get off my soap box now. :)

I recently made a small change that has decreased my trash output by at least 50%. The change? I recycle all my food scraps. In Seattle you can put food scraps into your yard waste bin. If this isn’t an option for you, consider composting your food scraps. That’s it. Now my trash is physically lighter, doesn’t smell, and I only need to put my trash at curb every three weeks. One change has made a significant difference in my trash output.

What changes have you made (or hope to make) to create less trash? Share your thoughts.

Economic downturn turns condom sales up

Recycling food waste or composting

Food waste and food-soiled paper make up about 30% of a typical household’s waste (I think it’s easily 50% for me). I live in a city where garbage fees are determined by the size of your trash can. I already have the smallest trash can, so food recycling is of no cost savings for me. But recycling, reducing and reusing are important to me, so I started recycling my food waste.

Luckily, Seattle makes recycling easy. I can add food waste to my yard waste can. In my kitchen I have a food scraps bucket and I pile in fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grinds, egg shells, citrus peels, tea bags, meat, cheese, bones, and napkins. When it’s full I just take the bucket and dump the contents into my yard waste can outside. Super simple!

If your city doesn’t have a food waste recycling program, you can compost your food waste in a variety of ways. You still have the food scraps bucket inside, but the final resting place will differ – a compost bin, a worm bin, compost pile, or a hole in the earth. 

To minimize the mess of collecting food scraps, consider lining your pail with newspaper, a paper bag, or a Biobag. 

Composting organic materials saves space in our landfills. In Seattle, my yard waste (and food scraps) are taken to Cedar Grove Composting facility where they’re turned into compost. Since I started recyling my food waste, I’ve been able to reduce my trash to one bag every other week (a 50% reduction). How low can you go? See how little waste you and your family can create.

Compost guide
HowtoCompost.org