This zone includes any counties that border Washington. Back in the 90’s period, I had a cousin that lived on the Washington coast just north of Astoria. Him and some of his friends would round up all the bottles and cans their cars would hold and drive down to the Safeway in Astoria and stuff everything in the recycling machines. If they were lucky they would make enough to cover the gas cost to drive down and back. Soon the machines were removed. I hadn’t seen one in years till I stopped in the town of Halfway last summer. Also saw one in Enterprise.
Good point! But I’m not advocating washing a plastic-film bag after every re-use. If I reuse a produce bag eight or ten times (conservative estimate), and briefly rinse it maybe once or twice, before it becomes torn and has to be thrown away, I think that’s a net footprint reduction.
No reason we can’t do both, at least in situations where the former is not actually counterproductive! I totally agree that individual plastic-film use is an absolutely negligible matter in terms of the big picture here, but so are many things that are nonetheless good habits as part of a general approach to anti-wastefulness.
I remember doing bottle drives as a cub scout and it was like hitting the jackpot when you found a guy with hundreds of empty beer bottles in his garage. Thinking back now, it just seems kind of sad.
@Kimstu - we are in complete agreement. What I am trying to say and it is not coming out correctly is that conscientious individuals like you are made the “model case” by corporate guys and they pitch this story in boardrooms / funding decisions.
The median income in the US is about 32k and they do not have the time to treat plastic like you do. But Oil corporate guys in Boardrooms, will tell your story and say that every American needs to be like Kimstu and thereby shift the burden to the poor folks; while its business as usual for them.
The truth is that we need to make the Oil Companies responsible for the Cradle → Grave costs of plastics. And IMO investing time on this activism is equally good as reusing plastics.
Yup, violently agree.