So I was standing in the office kitchen, dutifully wrapping saran wrap around the empty soup can that had contained my lunch, trying not to mourn the shend of shenrights, and realized how much I hate saran wrap, and wondered what my ga-millionaire of a boss would say if he saw me saran-wrapping a can.
I was also wondering, how much does the average person miss out on recycling?
I was saran-wrapping the can so it wouldn't leak in my bag as I took it home to recycle it. Because, Tom is an absolute recycling maniac, and has converted me. His parents are moreso, as they recycle so much they don't even have garbage pick up.
I'm sure you all want to be savvy recyclers, so, without further ado, here are some recyclable items for thought:
Paper
- Toilet paper rolls
- Soup can labels
- Envelopes
- Grocery lists
- Unused fast-food napkins and bags
- Library receipts
- Junk mail
- Price tags ripped off of new clothing
Plastic
- Envelope windows
- Packaging surrounding almost anything you buy, including popsicles
- Grungy bags you wouldn't use for anything
- Holey grocery bags
- I'm sure you can find way more--just keep an eye out for one day and see how much plastic you come into contact with and consider throwing out
Bonus: Tom and I just dropped off three boxes of recycling, including one magazine. We discovered that people don't just throw old, boring magazines into the bin, they throw away books, too! We came home with some interesting looking week-old (and quarter-century old) magazines, a grammar book (mine) and a book on electronic circuits (his).
So, g'wan! Get recycling!
3 comments:
We generally put out two large recycle bins every week and one small bag of garbage every two weeks, so we're certainly doing our part. The one thing we have too much of is diapers. We've heard opposing arguments indicating that the amount of bleach you need to use to clean cloth diapers is just as bad as the disposal of disposable ones. What we have also learned is that the materials used in disposable ones are a whole lot more bio-degradable now than they used to be. It still isn't better than simple paper, but what can we do?
I've heard stories that here at the office, even though we put paper into recycling bins, it all goes to garbage. Someday I'd like to really check up on that, and also confirm that at home it is being recycled properly.
I don't recycle (hanging my head in shame) but I do re-use stuff like crazy. I used to be really into the environmental causes. I read this book when I was in 8th grade called "50 Things You Can Do to Save the Earth" and I was totally into it. Maybe I should dust that baby off and get re-inspired.
You guys brought up a very important point that I missed--reusing containers, bags, napkins, etc.
Raven--great idea on the magazines! Most offices I know can definitely use them!
Phil--the diaper issue is a tough call... and I sure hope all the paper recycled at offices doesn't go to the garbage!!!
Mindy--I think reusing is just as important if not more important than recycling! At least with reusing (keeping Phil's point about office paper in mind) we KNOW that it is actually being reused.
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