Discussion: grocery bags

Do folks out in Wyoming go in for the reusable cloth kind? A lot of localities back here have banned the plastic ones.

Probably inclined to go with leather saddlebags.

Free grocery bags are a thing of the past in CT. We still have a fairly sizable stash of them that we use primarily for cleaning the cat litter box. If you have enough of them, you might consider getting a cat.

Recycling aluminum cans is a great thing to do - kudos for that!

The lack of oceans in Wyoming may also be a great thing since most of the plastic ends up in Swampfox´s care - much better than this.

In Sweden most communities recycle "everything": cans, glass bottles, newspapers, cardboard packaging, plastic (hard and soft). I don´t really know how/if they really can re-use all of it but you can always hope.

PS. In answer to jj´s comment: I´ve started to always bring my own shopping bags (actually bought in California at Trader Joe´s). Very small contribution to lessen the growing plastic mountain but still...

The sad thing is, we re-used our plastic grocery bags. Now that we don't get them any more, we have to buy new plastic bags for things things reusable bags can't handle (like trash, for example). I'm not sure this is going to work out quite the way people think it is...

You want some plastic bags, Tori? Like Mikell, I have a pretty good supply, because I put them in the closet rather than in the trash. I'd be happy to give you most of them. (I'm not accumulating them any more because I'm using cloth bags, but when I was, they'd pile up so fast that I'd occasionally have to bring them to the recycling box at the supermarket.)

To follow up with what bubo wrote, one of the most interesting things I did this past summer while in Sweden was to visit one of the local recycling centers in Huskvarna. They compliment recycling containers at every house where various things can be sorted and left at the curb for pickup, just as is common in many parts of the US.

The recycling center, however, was unlike anything I've seen before. It was large, it was manned, and it was free. There were many, many large bins, each for one sort of material, arranged in a fashion so that it was easy to drive right up to any one of them. And it appeared to be the case that you could recycle virtually anything: cinder blocks, drywall, paint, construction lumber, shingles, oil--you name it, including poisons and other hazardous materials. It was very impressive, and well located right in the middle of the town.

I contrast that with what we have here in Laramie, which is single stream curbside pickup of some of the most ordinary household items: plastic, metal, and paper. You can drop off electronics and white goods and a few other things at the dump, which is of course a few miles outside of town. Some things require an appointment to drop off. Fees are charged for some items.

And the reality is *probably* ( I don't know for sure, but I can take a good guess) that with materials prices today, that most, if not all, of the plastic and paper we are recycling in the single stream containers is being dumped in a landfill somewhere in Colorado. The paper gets contaminated by the single stream process and has little or no value as such, and plastics are near worthless, too.

Actually, JJ, Jon may well take you up on that. We're relying on the Air Force to keep us supplied right now, and our monthly trip to Hanscom may not quite cut it. There's a small stash in our closet, but it's noticeably dwindling.

I will say our town dump and recycling center is by far the nicest one we've had access to. A lot of people in town use it rather than a commercial pick-up service. It's impressive how little trash you have when there's good recycling *and* an industrial compost. You can bring home free composted soil and mulch, too.