May Action: Reducing Plastic Round 2

We voted at dinner on Sunday and decided to focus on plastic for another month. One of the things that influenced our decision is that Madison is introducing legislation to ban throwing away clean plastic bags.

Although we excited that Madison is concerned about plastic bags...we are disappointed with the proposed legislation.

• It will be difficult( impossible!) to enforce.
• It may actually increase use of plastic bags...since now it will be easier to recycle.
• Since it is OK to throw out "dirty" plastic bags...we still have plastic going into landfills and lakes.

It is a stop gap measure. Right now very few plastic bags are recycled..the hope is that this would decrease the amount of plastic bags in land fills and oceans by increasing the amount that gets recycled. What do others think?

Plastic Bag Update

We are using BioBag for our trash.

They are thinner and more fragile than regular plastic bags. We can't stuff them full, so sometimes have to take out trash more often. For us, it is incentive to keep our amount of trash down.

They are more expensive than conventional trash bags but no polyethylene used to produce them and they are 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable. We will use these until we find a better option.

2. We have not taken any new plastic bags when shopping!! We are using ( almost exclusively) cloth bags. I ran into trouble yesterday when I did a big shop at Woodmans and ran out of bags and had to use some paper. :(

Current challenges: 1. How to keep produce fresh in the fridge? Right now we are re-using plastic bags.

2. Plastic bottle caps: these are currently not recyclable and are causing havoc with wild animals that eat them and when their bellies are full of plastic, they starve.

( Please note: Ben's dour expression is related to the job of taking out the garbage and should not be construed as a comment on the BioBag he is holding.)