Blog site for the Green Savvy Shopper
I was cooking dinner tonight , pasta, broccoli, garlic bread and was at the sink rinsing out the Ragu sauce bottle for recycling. As I was rinsing, I was thinking, how much water am i wasting doing this? In today’s blog, I survey the readers. Surely there must be a better practice than rinsing out food recycling.
Any ideas?
My family and I vacationed with two other families this week in the Florida Keys. If you have never been, I highly recommend it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the city of Marathon was well up on recycling and I can imagine that the onslaught of tourists has a ton to do with their efforts. The Keys are a fishing, diving, and drinking mecca. Unfortunately, being an island community, land space is at a premium.
One thing I can look at is the total consumption of visitors to the islands. Not bragging or complaining, but a full week in the keys resulted in nearly 100 aluminum cans, various beverages as you can imagine. Marathon Key was more than ready with a great recycling and information program that puts large cities to shame. Yes, we had ton’s of plastic bottles as well because quite frankly, boating and diving for 8+ hours a day means a well stocked cooler with the bain of our landfills, plastic water bottles.
On the plus side, we were able to recycle all of these disposables via the city of Marathon’s recycling program. Of course we brought our biodegradable trash bags along because the Keys, as well as most cities, don’t have what I like to call a large selection of trash bags in the supermarkets.
If you get a chance to take a vacation south, hit the Keys, you won’t be disappointed. My hat is off to the Sunshine State and the city of Marathon in particular. Beef up on the biodegradables in your supermarkets and you will go far.
Since his storied campaign and rise the highest office, President Obama has touted a green movement with the announcement of job creations, an energy czar, and a number of wide ranging programs. I laud the initiative, but, and perhaps unfairly, haven’t seen nearly the traction I had hoped for.
True it is unfair to blame the main man when our representatives in congress have done little while awaiting the word from the top on what they should do next. And true, with so much focus on the banking and housing issues, there are some priority issues that must be managed.
My question is this to you readers, what are your expectations of this democratic administration with regards to truely green change?
I have to confess, I was inspired by the Seventh Generation story. For 20 years, the closely held Burlington, Vermont-based company has been at the forefront of a cultural change in consumer behavior and business ethics (quote from their website).
I have to ask the basic question then, are they manufacturers or a well branded company. I specifically target a product I have been using for 2 years, the Seventh Generation Kitchen Trash Bag. Again from their website,
Kitchen Trash Bags: 55% recycled plastic (16% post-consumer, 39% pre-consumer)
Isn’t it time to moves towards a biodegradable trash bag alternative? More on that later because I want to laud Seventh Generation a bit more.
The bags are made in the United States and Manufactured for Seventh Generation. Thats good news considering that most trash bags it seems are made in China or some other country. Great Job Seventh Generation!
Plastic takes like 500 years (depending on who you ask) to biodegrade, to the basic question is, can we move to a truely biodegradable bag like the Biobag brand, or are we happy with a plastic bag?
Seventh Generation is a leader in cultural change, perhaps it is time to move to the next phase of biodegradable trash bags. Would appreciate your thoughts.
