Easy plastic waste solution is staring us in the face.

[matt819]

28. My little town

has the town dump - whoops, recycling center. Everyone calls it the dump, though.

Nice guys working there, and they really care about the job they're doing. But they are constrained by, well, reality.

Paper, for example. They don't have a baling machine, so they ship in industrial cartons - $40/ton to ship, $40 per ton to bale on the recycler's end. So, recycling paper is costing the town. Plus, they just stopped taking printed/coated boxes - like cereal boxes - because the recycler they sell to has no market for them.

Aluminum, cans, and bottles - They get paid for these. So all's good there, I think.

Plastic. They only take #1 and #2, and not all of them. The really thin #1 - I think that's the stuff that produce may come in, or items the grocery store prepares for sale, e.g., sandwiches. So, the garbage it is for those items. #2 is plastic bottles, I think, so that's good, except for the really, really thin ones, like the ones Poland Spring comes in. So, off to the compactor. And they don't take anything else.

The local food co-op does take all plastics, but they're not really set up for mass collection. Their bins are tiny and not placed in convenient spots. They mean well, and that's great - and I have started to bring all my plastic there - but it's a bit of a pain. And I have to trust them when they say they're recycling. They probably are, but at least the town recycling center has to provide its report to town showing costs and revenues, so you can pretty much be sure that they are doing what they say they are doing.

I haven't seen plastic recycling machines in grocery stores.

As for my little contribution. I no longer bag oranges or apples, and in the co-op I bag my stuff in paper or I bring jars. And I remember to bring in my carrier bags about 85% of the time. Same with shopping at hardware store, auto parts store, Staples, and such.