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The Millstone around the Floss
Sep. 30th, 2019 12:56 pmFriday was Climate Strike day, with MEC and LUSH closing for the day and thousands converging on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, while in Toronto Greta Thunberg shook her fist at Justin Trudeau and demanded he take more action to combat the climate apocalypse.
I recently heard about micro plastics in, of all things, teabags! I don't think any of the ones we have are affected and in any case, we often use loose tea instead. And we don't use coffee pods either! Single-use plastics are being demonized, perhaps justifiably, but primarily in the form of plastic bags, straws and cutlery.
Now to some extent, I'm guilty of using all of these, although rarely do I use them only once before discarding them. Plastic straws? I rarely use them. Plastic cutlery? If I do use it, I clean it off and stash it in my purse, pocket, hotel room or medicine cabinet; sometimes they break in transit and then I check for a recycle symbol and blue-bin them. As for plastic bags, I don't routinely use them for retail purchases (I carry my own reusable bags) but when I do get them, they definitely get re-used, whether to keep library books out of the rain, to separate clean and dirty clothes if I'm travelling, to hold wet bathing suits and towels or to line the garbage pail. As well, plastic bags are now being accepted in the municipal green bin, although I don't think they're really being recycled - just separated out from all the guck that IS recyclable.
But there's one product in my life that definitely IS a single-use plastic: dental floss. And it's something I struggle with every time I sift through our waste for garbage day, determining which colour-coded bin to put things in. It gets tangled up in the human hair, pet fur, dust bunnies and floor sweepings which ARE recyclable and I dutifully strain it out.
Apparently there are alternatives out there at a price, like silk or bamboo, but they don't seem to be readily available on the shelves of grocery stores or pharmacies.
As Kermit says, it ain't easy being green.
I recently heard about micro plastics in, of all things, teabags! I don't think any of the ones we have are affected and in any case, we often use loose tea instead. And we don't use coffee pods either! Single-use plastics are being demonized, perhaps justifiably, but primarily in the form of plastic bags, straws and cutlery.
Now to some extent, I'm guilty of using all of these, although rarely do I use them only once before discarding them. Plastic straws? I rarely use them. Plastic cutlery? If I do use it, I clean it off and stash it in my purse, pocket, hotel room or medicine cabinet; sometimes they break in transit and then I check for a recycle symbol and blue-bin them. As for plastic bags, I don't routinely use them for retail purchases (I carry my own reusable bags) but when I do get them, they definitely get re-used, whether to keep library books out of the rain, to separate clean and dirty clothes if I'm travelling, to hold wet bathing suits and towels or to line the garbage pail. As well, plastic bags are now being accepted in the municipal green bin, although I don't think they're really being recycled - just separated out from all the guck that IS recyclable.
But there's one product in my life that definitely IS a single-use plastic: dental floss. And it's something I struggle with every time I sift through our waste for garbage day, determining which colour-coded bin to put things in. It gets tangled up in the human hair, pet fur, dust bunnies and floor sweepings which ARE recyclable and I dutifully strain it out.
Apparently there are alternatives out there at a price, like silk or bamboo, but they don't seem to be readily available on the shelves of grocery stores or pharmacies.
As Kermit says, it ain't easy being green.
