Re-using water bottles

[Mad Cook]

We buy a case of water in 500ml bottles every week. We use them once and then they get recycled. So long as all plastics are sent for recycling, there is no environmental impact to the landfills. All plastics can be reused except for styrofoam because there is no market for it. I pushed our purchasing dept. at work a few years ago to approach our suppliers to get rid of styrofoam in their packaging as we would no longer accept it. These are companies like IBM, HP and EMC. They have all complied and now use molded cardboard replacing the styrofoam.

But there is an argument that the costs and energy used in collection and transportation of plastics for recycling detract from (and outweigh) the costs and energy saved in the production process. Better to reuse your plastic bottles and if you absolutely MUST have bottled water buy it in big containers and decant into your saved smaller bottles. However, I assume that where you are you have a safe, clean, piped water supply?

Even better was the old method we used to have in the UK where glass soft drink bottles, beer bottles and jam jars had a returnable deposit on them - only a few pennies but worthwhile returning your "empties" to the shop or worth small boys collecting them and returning them to supplement their pocket money. We still have doorstep deliveries of milk in returnable glass bottles. Much better than plastic containers.

A couple of the companies I deal with have started using packaging "peanuts" made of corn starch rather than polystyrene ones.

 

[Mad Cook]

I've collected a lot of articles about recycling and some of them aren't exactly reassuring. And nothing is easy or cheap, to do it right.

Here is just one city's experience:
‘Recycled’ at the landfill | Local News | The Register-Guard | Eugene, Oregon

I continue to 'recycle' but I don't have my rose-tinted glasses (pun intended) on when I do it. Every little bit helps and I hope that eventually it will all get sorted out (pun intended).

Since China implemented their Green Fence Initiative we can no longer send so much of our (mainly) plastic waste there. But where is it going?[/QUOTE]India and various states in SE Asia take a great deal of the west's waste and health and safety for the workers is not paramount. Somehow I feel that collecting it and shipping it half way round the world isn't exactly eco-friendly.

If we used less there would be less to recycle but that is made difficult by the producers of goods we buy. I was visiting a friend recently who had bought some cakes from the supermarket. She unpacked them to go with our coffee - the cakes each had a foil container and they sat in a plastic tray, inside a sealed plastic bag, inside a cardboard box, inside a sealed cellophane wrapper. Why? The company concerned makes a big hoo-ha about its responsible eco-activities. Oh yeah!

 

[cave76]

MC said:
" shipping it half way round the world isn't exactly eco-friendly"

Right! They don't realize that "our world" is one world.

" cakes each had a foil container and they sat in a plastic tray, inside a sealed plastic bag, inside a cardboard box, inside a sealed cellophane wrapper."

Yeppers! Of course maybe we should also thank the Tylenol Murderer a few years back? Seven people died and a lot of packaging manufacturers jumped on that as a way to make more money. (Not that I'm ticked off about the safety of that------not at all. I'm the first one to not take a package that looks messed with!)

But-----

 

[taxlady]

Sweden seems to be doing a good job of waste management:

Sweden wants Norway's trash (and lots of it)

 

[cave76]

Sweden seems to be doing a good job of waste management:

Sweden wants Norway's trash (and lots of it)

That's interesting and hopeful. Thanks for sending the article.

" waste will be valued even more."

That's like making lemonade out of lemons.

[I'm going to start a different thread in Off Topic for the rest of my unsolicited comments ----- I'm straying way away from the original topic here. I'll call it Advertising Pharmaceuticals.]

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f26/advertising-pharmceuticals-88759.html#post1338966