Two days after Easter
In which I finally get around to doing what I said I'd do, and organize all this plastic I've been saving.
Well, I can't tell you the volume of plastics I saved over the course of Lent, because I don't have a scale in this house and I aim to keep it that way. But I did just spend two hours sorting, to the best of my ability, all the plastics that we saved.
Wooooo Nelly! I've made a righteous mess.
So before I share the pictures, I think it only fair to admit a few things:
1) I'm not done with this experiment. Not by a long shot. This is the first time in my life that a Lenten practice has profoundly changed my worldview. I might stack this up there with that time I became vegetarian in college for Lent, cause that stuck for 6 years, but this worldview shift has me thinking deeply about the earth, plastics, ecology and a whole host of other stuff almost all the time--at least several times a day. And it isn't guilt driven either, but more of an awareness. So, yeah.
2) Here's my plan. I'll post all the pictures tonight and call it good. Then I'll go type by type into an discussion of the sorted final stage, and recycle those items (or not) afterwards. Then I'll have a set of stuff that still isn't sorted because I don't know what it is and I think I have a good chance of finding out. This includes: bottle tops, zip ties, green army men, forks and spoons, deodorant bottles, cereal bags and a recorder. THEN I hope to make a trip out to the recycling center to get more questions answered. Hopefully by that point I'll have further direction
3) I have a short list of take-aways:
- styrofoam is eeeeevil, and it will take a good deal of convincing to convince me otherwise.
- medical grade plastic is amazing
- so are plant based plastics
- There is a lot that CAN be recycled that isn't. I rather want to know what it would take to change that.
that said, heeeeeeere's all the plastic from 40 days of Lent!! (Cue the music!)
Plastics #1 Bottles, bottles, more bottles.
Plastics #2 Mostly Milk bottles. Of varying sizes. Some straws.
My only Plastics #3--the wrappers on biodegradable pots. Who'd have thunk?
Plastics #4 Mostly Bread bags. Seriously. That's all that's in there. I have some guilt knowing that if I'd just NOT been lazy/busy/mom to a toddler AND a pastor AND a wife and baked a ton of bread I could have avoided all of this...of course, it DID all fit into one bag and it's really light.
Plastics #5 Mostly dairy products, some cups and take out.
The eeeeevil plastic #6. Styrofoam cups, meat packs, and Starbucks/coffee lids
The troubling mass of plastics #7 and beyond...what IS most of this stuff?? Big questions: cereal baggies, chip baggies, coffee baggies, cheese wrappers, food wrappers.
And then these charmers for the night:
While I fully expected these tiny yogurt containers to be #5 like all their kin, the label gleefully informs me that they are made of plant plastics. The question is then: does it still recycle? or should I try to compost that?
Seriously ya'll, my kitchen is covered in trash.
I mean, valid spiritual inquiry.
My kitchen is covered in valid spiritual inquiry that is too massive to fit in the recycling bin.
One thing at a time!!
Peace be upon you in your Eastertide.
Marie
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