…who don’t recycle water bottles. That’s right, close to 78% of the 70 million water bottles used every day don’t get recycled. Even when they are recycled, they are often made into cheaper plastics that go on to be used only one more time. Perhaps they reincarnate as a playground, getting years of use. Perhaps you’ll spot the ghost of one later as a plastic bag, stretched and torn in a tree as its petroleum composite slowly breaks down. In the decade between 1997 and 2007, bottled water sales jumped from 13.4 gallons per person to 29.3 gallons per person (U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2009, June). Bottled Water: FDA Safety and Consumer Protections are Often Less Stringent than Comparable EPA Protections for Tap Water. Retrieved June 2010from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09610.pdf_). Add energy and transportation costs to the energy and materials used to make the product, and you have water where 90% of the cost went into production and marketing.
Better yet, invest in a reusable water bottle. What water bottle is best? Some tout stainless steel or aluminum, as they are cleaner and more sustainable than plastic. There is concern a plastic bottle left in a hot car may leach BPAs, PCBs or other chemicals into the water. Think also of where you are going to use it. Will it fit in the cup holder? The ceramic ones can be heated in the microwave but often have silicone lids that spill if you’re walking with them. For me, who has to walk over a mile to the bus, a tight-fitting lid is key. Plus, if I have access to a microwave, I have access to a cupboard to store a mug I can pour my beverage into to heat. Then make sure you are using the water bottle, travel mug, or shopping bag. Sometimes have to repeatedly tell a clerk I’ve brought my own bag or argue with baristas to fill my clean, reusable cup. (Maybe the ceramic one looked too much like a disposable one.) At the drive-thru, it’s even more difficult. My solution has been to brew my coffee at home or work (I use a press pot). Regarding the unbagging of my merchandise at department stores, I’m close to writing a letter to Target to train their cashiers better.
It would be so much better just to have plastic bags banned, and some supermarkets have stopped carrying them. Many stores also sell reusable bags, but cashiers continue to be in the habit of bagging in plastic without question. Trying to ban bags and non-recyclable containers outright is difficult, as lobbyists will fight for the right of a business to pollute. There were efforts to ban plastic bags in California , state-wide and town-by-town, with large resistance from corporations. Meanwhile, the state spends $25 million collecting the bags for the landfill and 8.5 million cleaning them up from streets and highways (Clean Air Council. (2009, May). Why Plastic Bag Fees Work.). Only 1% of bags even get recycled, the friendly boxes at the entrances of supermarkets being part of that. And for the $4000 it costs to recycle one ton of bags, the resulting material is sold for barely $32 (Clean Air Council. (2009, May). Why Plastic Bag Fees Work.). Why become a slave to such an inefficient system that only makes money for corporations? Use a reusable bag. Ireland has added a 15 cent surcharge to plastic bags, resulting in a drop to 27 bags used per person per year in 2008 as opposed to Britain’s 220 (Webster, B. (2010, January 18). Boris Johnson sets an Olympic goal for London to be Britain’s First Plastic Bag-Free City. The Times. Retrieved June 2010 from http://timesonline.co.uk). And, they’re making money that could go into further improvements in waste management. We need to treat where we live as an island, where nothing “goes away”. Nantucket has done just that, mining its own landfill for raw materials and setting up a used merchandise store to keep yet more out of the little space they have.
The good news is some corporations are realizing they can appeal to consumers AND save money while helping the environment. Beverage companies have reduced packaging 46% since 1990, despite 24% increased sales (American Beverage Association. (2010). “Packaging.” Environment. Retrieved June 2010, fromhttp://www.ameribev.org/environment/packaging/.). However, if that decrease is from the smaller caps on water bottles, it’s barely a dent compared to eliminating water bottles altogether. Think of all the trash generated by packaging in general. Think of that when you pick out toys for those on your holiday list. My daughter uses the wood crate with green lining her Melissa and Doug instruments came in as a corral for her horse figures. Of course, let’s not forget sometimes the box is the most fun part. At my school, students make robots out of the packaging I collect at home: rings from orange juice and half-and-half, plastic bubbles torn off cardboard backings, numerous tiny boxes…drink stirrers become axles for pasta wheels secured with a bit of Plasticene and the students race their working robot cars with bubble tops and strange parts before writing about what each part does. Feel free to make your own robot, or some other fun or useful device with your trash at home. I use a party platter tray (which I didn’t buy) as compartments in my junk drawer. It may be the neatest place in the house!
You can also effect change with your wallet: only buy food and goods with little to no packaging. It’s an over-all boycott of packaging that if enough people did, corporations would notice and respond. Some companies now advertize they use less packaging. (They’re also saving money.) In the case of water bottles with smaller caps, you’ll be saving the money over buying the bottled stuff by investing in a Britta filter instead. Perhaps your money will go into improving municipal water supplies…where there’s demand, there’s attention. Most bottled water is just filtered tap water anyway. And not all spring water is clean anymore.
More important: Don’t act alone. What is the break room like where you work? Is there recycling? We have a number of people who make sure the right containers are being used, training the less inspired to recycle. Remember, people had to be trained to throw something away in the first place. Make it easier for people to be more earth-friendly by providing the right tools for the job. The average office worker uses about 500 disposable cups a year (http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html). No wonder, when my one plate gets used by everyone, I hide my mug, and all the silverware I brought in has disappeared.…Sometimes people need to trip over the recycling bin before they use it. Perhaps we need silverware with GPS. We at the very least need longer-term solutions. While I'm at it, you can recycle electronics FREE Saturday, Dec. 10th, at the Audubon Society in Bristol, RI. For a full list of what they will accept, check here.
Just cleaning up the mess is not enough, when you haven’t corrected the behavior. Every spring, my family cleans out the woods behind my house, mostly of water bottles and plastic bags. There is one steel garbage can that is mostly ignored and no recycling bin. At my dojo, we noticed the trash cans over-flowing with iced coffee and bottled water containers. There is no recycling pick-up in that plaza. (Consider also: 84% of residents of the northeast have curbside recyclables pick-up, while only 30% of southern residents do. The south also has over 5 times as many landfills (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2009, November). Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States Detailed Tables and Figures for 2008. Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. Retrieved June, 2010 fromhttp://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2008data.pdf).) Solution: we got a large blue container, labeled it clearly, and released it into the wild. People responded by using it. We take it home once a week to put out with our own recyclables. We even suggested our dojo sell a reusable water bottle. When they offered it, we bought two.
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