Saturday, May 2, 2009

What does six months of film plastic collection look like?

I've taken our film plastic out of our garbage stream. We've always reused the plastic bags you get from the grocery store as garbage bags, but now all that other plastic (Raman Noodle Wrappers, Tortilla bags, Produce Bags, Potato Bags etc.) gets separated from the normal trash. In that perfect, ideal world I don't live in, I would drop off the film plastic recycling at the recycling station just down the street on a regular basis. In the world I do live in, the one where intermittent tasks sometimes get put off until they are a bit overwhelming, you can see what six months of plastic looks like. I figure this was enough to totally fill our garbage bin so it makes a difference to take it in separately.
Six months of plastic is surprisingly heavy. On the way to the recycling center I was panting more than usual. "Man, I am more out of shape than I thought" I said as I huffed and puffed. But after I dropped off the plastic, I was back to my usually speedy biking self. I was glad it was the plastic and not me.
Could you recycle your film plastic? It turned out to not be that much trouble for us. See if there is a recycling center near you.

2 comments:

Sara K. said...

Wow! That is a lot of plastic. I am very intrigued to see if we can recycle it here. Though Arlington is no Portland in those ways. -S

Sara K. said...

I should say that it is probably less then the average person, since you are very aware of that AND well done for keeping it out of the landfill! -S