Belated Earth Day post

I "recycle" plastic grocery bags as trash bags for small rubbish bins around the house. I don't believe in recycling anything other than aluminum and computer parts. Although, my skepticism for recycling comes from sketchy sources.

Yeah that's a point I omitted entirely since I use paper bags for a bunch of stuff other than hauling groceries. Less so for plastic.

And there's another good point about landfills hidden in here, too: if bags aren't consistently recycled, the plastic bags will stick around in landfills far longer than paper will.

But all else equal, plastic wins the recycling game.
--D

I generally do the same with the recycling of plastic bags as trash bags and paper bags (the ones from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods work well) as paper/cardboard recycling bags.

In Europe they started a system of making the manufacturers of products responsible for recycling the packaging they use for shipping to the consumers. This culminated in the "Green Dot"-System [1] & [2]. It seems to work reasonably well, both in causing a reduction in packaging and encouraging re-use.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol)
[2] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KWH/is_10_42/ai_n6276858

oh and it's related because it's mostly for plastics.

--Z