Zero Waste

[JanetMarie]

Sadly, the only grocery store that takes the plastic bags back for recycling no longer takes them since Covid.

Yet you can adjust your face mask and then touch all of the open produce without purchasing it. Where are the signs? Where are the produce police?

I saw an article somewhere that disposable facemasks that people carelessly throw on the ground are tangling wildlife up in them. There was a picture of a bird with it's legs bound by a mask. So sad, animals have been but should never pay by suffering for us.

 

[JanetMarie]

If you want to take the time there is a movie on you tube called "Planet of the Humans". I watched it over the summer. The end of the movie is heartbreaking. We're in trouble, the planet is in trouble.

 

[JanetMarie]

 

[Mini Horses]

Too many humans are just inconsiderate!!! Why litter?

Because there are so many options -- good or bad -- humans no longer care. If we were once again in the life where we had to make all of our own containers, or limited to only a few glass or metal to acquire, we would be more careful and less wasteful.

Very much like food preservation. Salt curing, dehydrating, fermenting, canning, cellaring, clamps -- none are new efforts, just rediscovered. Before refrigeration, all these were used. It's all there was!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thanks for starting this thread @tortoise!

This is something near and dear to us. DH is in charge of our recyclables here and it is a labor of love for him. It's not easy here to recycle. DH separates everything and even washes the glass (required). We have to take it to a recycle center that's 20 miles away. We hold it here until we have enough to warrant the trip and/or combine the trip with another outing.

Cardboard is used in the garden. Junk mail is for starting the charcoal for the smoker. Leftover food is never wasted with dogs, goats, chickens and pigs!

 

[Hinotori]

We have curbside recycling. Yes, even out in the country here as we're still close enough to the dump for trucks to do the rounds and the county to care. Glass must be taken to the drop off locations, though. It's picked up every 2 weeks opposite the yard waste pick up. If I remember right, the recycling is mandatory. Heck in Seattle you'll get fined for food waste in garbage. That goes in yard waste for composting.

Obviously I compost my yard waste myself, but they have a facility to do it beside the dump.

 

[Britesea]

They need the dump space for the mountains of non-recyclable expired wind turbine blades and solar panels that are coming down the line.

 

[baymule]

It costs TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS just to take a wind turbine down. Then they toss all those fan blades in a pile. @Britesea you are right, they are not recycled. They March away beyond the horizon in west Texas, rows of them go for miles and miles.

 

[tortoise]

They need the dump space for the mountains of non-recyclable expired wind turbine blades and solar panels that are coming down the line.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Prescient as usual @Britesea! <3

 

[baymule]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Prescient as usual @Britesea! <3

Cry. We are sold a bill of goods. Wonder what it takes to manufacture all those fan blades? How much pollution does it create to make them?

The Environmental Fiasco of Wind Energy

Wind turbines only last for around 20 years, so many of them are now wearing out. That raises serious questions about disposal of defunct wind turbine parts. The turbines' giant blades are not recyclable, so they must be dumped in landfills. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports on one South...

www.powerlineblog.com

The comments on this one are thought provoking.

Wind turbine landfill or mass grave? We report, you decide

Last week pictures surfaced of a landfill in Wyoming being filled with something you may not have imagined: wind turbine blades. It turns out that the fiberglass wind turbine blades are not recyclable, and the waste disposal site located near Casper, Wyoming will soon be the final resting place...

www.americanexperiment.org

There are dump sites for these things all over the country, in Texas too.