When it comes to food preparation, eating utensils and drinking containers I stay away from plastics and my kitchen is mostly glass wear, stainless steel copper and other metal and ceramic dishes and non plastic products. Most items today have way to much packing materials and plastics . I remember a time when your meats, cheese, lunch meats, where wrapped in butcher paper and all single serve drinks where in glass along with other food products. IMO too much plastic crap is made today and polluting our environment.
Yep! Mulching is about the only “recycling” I can think of that’s a win/win. It’s better for the grass, AND I don’t have to stop every 5 or 6 passes and empty the bag, plus drag a can around with clippings and also take ‘em to the curb on garbage day! To me, recycling shouldn’t cost money, or time, it’s supposed to save.
Lame situation all around as research indicates the only moneymakers for recycling are cardboard and metal. The rest is just waste. Even glass is extremely difficult to recycle. I need to bring my own containers to carry out joints from now on as the styrofoam waste is incredible. However, one needs to look at who gains from continuous production of petroleum based single use containers.
A few years back I started using a blue Yeti at the office and an orange one at home. No condensation rings, no confusion over who's drink is who's, no piling up of dirty cups, and no plastic or paper waste. Drinks stay cold way longer and there are no nasty pools of condensation in my cars' cupholders. I take one on short road trips and long vacations / business trips, and go into convenience stores with it as needed. It feels crazy unnatural to grap a disposable cup at this point.
Material waste that irks me: disposable chopsticks in nice restaurants that use silverware for everything else.
Sears made virtually none of what they sold. Perhaps a bit of detective work will disclose the actual manufacturer. Then at least you will know what exactly you are looking for.
Who manufactured it is of no concern to me. It's given me 25+ years of reliability, thus paying for itself several times over. I'll give it away when the time comes to move into a condo or apartment.
I've been in plastics manufacturing since 17 y/o in 1979 when PET 2-liter bottles took over market glass bottles. We joked then then we had job security because everything we made ends up in the trash. Little did we know! 20 years later I got out of the bottle blowing and into injection molding for various industries. Finding a home for ground up recyclable materials like nylon, polycarbonate, ABS, polypropylene and others continues to be a major struggle often ending in failure. We grind and recycle many thousands of lbs internally but there is a lot, sadly, that ends up in the landfill. And this is material we grind up from what we call sprues/runners which is a by product of excess material when molding parts. So its not even post consumer resin contaminated with who knows what which complicates recycling for reuse especially in the US. I can't give the stuff away because the freight cost to truck it somewhere that can process it is more costly than its worth. With EPA regulations and companies with self-governed restrictions on using regrind (usually to avoid a potential law suit) in the manufacture of their plastic parts, it is difficult to use recycled materials legally or the cost is so great it becomes a loss in $$$. My experience is often the cost in handling, processing, administration, and freight of recyclable material is more than simply buying new virgin material which explains the OPs point. If the price of virgin material went up considerably, suddenly recycling would become advantageous, but then the cost of everything we use goes up too and that's been happening enough. Urgh! I am certain the materials we have that end up in a landfill would be of value in countries that aren't as regulated or wealthy but transporting it across the ocean isn't lucrative. The whole plastic bottle waste is a real problem. Most of us have probably seen images of plastic waste collecting in oceans. I live in rural SW PA and recently had 6" of rain over a couple days. My wife and I traveled to the backwaters of a local flood control dam, the Conemaugh, because it is mind blowing to see how much water fills the massive backwater flood plane of the dam...but I digress. Floating debris tends to collect in certain areas and we came to a place that had literally thousands of plastic bottles and trash of all shapes and color along with wood from trees. It was a mess, a real eye opener and sad to see. I'm not a tree hugger but this is disgraceful. What happens is people throw this stuff out along highways, and along recreational water areas and hard rains wash it into small creeks then into large rivers and even larger rivers.
As I alluded to before, these facts are when I feel the government is right to impose deposits, fees or taxes on single use products. There’s nothing wrong in passing the cost of dealing with waste on to the people who create the problem, whether it’s paid by the business or the customer. I like the deposit system, whereby industrious folks can get anything from candy money to beer money or more by gathering up what others have thrown out AND reducing what gets thrown out. Patrick
The only plastic I use in the kitchen are reusable storage containers with snap lids. My "Yeti" is actually carrying the "Bubba" brand name, but I do the same. All of my Pots and pans have to have a steel or cast-Iron bottom because I have an induction stove which I love. I'll never have a non-induction cooking surface - ever. If anyone made a Revere-ware style pot or pan with a steel insert in the bottom, that would work. The bride loved Revere-ware, but our deal was that she cooked the meals and I cleaned up the mess. I hated polishing those copper bottoms. Not sorry to see them go. I am also sick of picking up other people's trash from my front and side yard. In Massachusetts there were deposits on Plastic bottles as well as Aluminum cans, so I would save the junk, and when I had enough of it I would take the stuff to the grocery or liquor store and redeem the stuff for the deposit. At least I was getting something for my efforts. Here in Florida there is no deposit and I now am cleaning up other peoples garbage for free. It stinks.
