Posts Tagged ‘trash’
Question for you…
When you were growing up, did your mom ever do or say anything that made you think, ‘I’m going to have to ask her about that one day when she can’t yell at me for asking about it?’ I have quite a few of these tucked away.
When we were growing up, we didn’t use plastic garbage bags in the kitchen trash. We used the brown paper bags that the groceries came in, tucked inside the kitchen trash can, then when they got full, pulled them out, then dumped into those larger black trash bags that went out by the curb for the garbage man to pick up. We could fit about 4 brown bags of trash into the larger plastic bags.
What are you going to do with your leftover Styrofoam? Throw it in the trash?
Well, you could, but it is going to sit in the landfill longer than you or I will be around. Or your children or grandchildren. It can take Styrofoam up to an estimated 500 years to degrade in a landfill. If your waste management program burns garbage, as many do, that Styrofoam creates a toxic ash. What’s the solution, then?
I had a chance to meet with Dave and Barbara Sherman from ReFoamIt last spring. They set up Stryofoam Collection Days and invite anyone from the surrounding towns to show up with their Styrofoam. They ask that you remove all tape, labels, and food particles from it beforehand. They accept Styrofoam peanuts and return them to companies like UPS.
Let’s kick off the week with a guest post by Alisa Gilbert on being eco-friendly, not an eco-snob. You know who you are. We know who you are.
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It seems that we have a lot to learn when it comes to convincing the masses that going green is a worthy lifestyle change. After all, despite being barraged by numerous irrefutable facts on the benefits of switching to man-powered or public transportation, buying organic produce, using reusable shopping bags, and reducing waste in general, a great deal of the public still will not integrate green practices into their own lives. The blame here may not actually lie with materialism and laziness, but rather with the green movement itself or in particular, with the eco-snobbery associated with the green movement’s most outspoken advocates.
Now that I’m back from my extended stay with family in Germany, I’d like to share with everyone some of the greener aspects of the German lifestyle that I would love to see here in the United States.
Let’s start with recycling!
They exist.
I knew that once my stash of garbage bags from the price club ran out, Live Green Mom would need to start exploring the world of eco-friendly garbage bags. I have not heard the most positive comments on the subject!
