[Midnight Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by Jazuela

Then - disposable diapers, plastic bags, and take-out containers. Are you willing to give all three up? I'm not specifying what kind of plastic bags. ALL plastic bags. Including garbage bags, trash can liners, kitty litter bags, grocery bags, ziplock bags for the fridge and freezer, sandwich bags, etc. etc. etc.

If we start with straws, we're doing SOMETHING other than just saying "let's do something, but not straws." You have to start somewhere. Straws are the least-used item that has the least impact on civilization.

To Midnight Cowgirl, stop trying to take a drink while you're driving. You shouldn't be doing that anyway, with or without a straw. Problem solved.

In the center console of my car, I have two cup holders and I choose to use them for the function for which they were designed.

In addition, that's where I keep my quarter for Aldi's shopping cart, but that doesn't interfere with my glass being in the holder, too.

I shouldn't be doing that anyway? Sez who???
I don't have a problem with that.

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by CFrance

"There’s only one real solution, these experts say: make and consume less plastic."

We must make and consume less plastic, but that requires cooperation by the companies that package goods in plastic.

In Ontario, probably everywhere in Canada, there is a five-cent charge for plastic bags.
A shopper quickly gets used to providing their own cloth bags.

In Ontario, we have four streams of recycling, compost and garbage.
Obviously the intent is to increase recycling and composting because containers are provided by the City.

Garbage is picked up every two weeks, and one quickly gets used to that. A garbage tag is provided by the City.
If you have more garbage, you need to buy additional tags.

Compost is picked up once a week. Compost (in a compostable bag) contains paper towels, as well as fruit peels, meat bones, etc. There is a small container provided for under the sink and a larger container for the garage.
Of course, a shopper has to buy compostable bags for each container.

Recycling is also picked up once a week, and the first container is for paper and cardboard.

The other recycling container is for plastics, cans, milk cartons, plastic food cartons, etc. The bad stuff.

We need cooperation by the companies that package stuff in plastic.
Otherwise, sadly, we will continue down the same path.

[Midnight Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

We must make and consume less plastic, but that requires cooperation by the companies that package goods in plastic.

In Ontario, probably everywhere in Canada, there is a five-cent charge for plastic bags.
A shopper quickly gets used to providing their own cloth bags.

In Ontario, we have four streams of recycling, compost and garbage.
Obviously the intent is to increase recycling and composting because containers are provided by the City.

Garbage is picked up every two weeks, and one quickly gets used to that. A garbage tag is provided by the City.
If you have more garbage, you need to buy additional tags.

Compost is picked up once a week. Compost (in a compostable bag) contains paper towels, as well as fruit peels, meat bones, etc. There is a small container provided for under the sink and a larger container for the garage.
Of course, a shopper has to buy compostable bags for each container.

Recycling is also picked up once a week, and the first container is for paper and cardboard. Most everyone

The other recycling container is for plastics, cans, milk cartons, plastic food cartons, etc. The bad stuff.

We need cooperation by the companies that package stuff in plastic.
Otherwise, sadly, we will continue down the same path.

Obviously, Ontario is going overboard and doing the right thing with trash, garbage, etc.
I applaud their efforts and everyone who abides by their rules.

I think to myself how something such as you described will NEVER happen in TV. Can you imagine?
Half the residents here complain and moan about just having a trash can and the developer obviously has no plans to change the way things are done!

Going the extra mile here just isn't in anyone's agenda to do the right thing to help the environment.
I see no beneficial results happening.

Yup. Most people here are inherently lazy and can't be bothered.
It's sad that the next generations are the ones who will be paying the price for all the things we aren't doing.

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by Midnight Cowgirl

Obviously, Ontario is going overboard and doing the right thing with trash, garbage, etc.

MC, I don't think it's a Villages problem. I think it's a global problem.
My point was that recycling bad stuff continues; like take-out food containers, coffee
cream containers and plastic bottles.
And until the companies stop packaging products in plastic, I don't see that changing for the better.

[Bambi]

I lived in Michigan - not far from Sarnia. Everyday there was a parade of garbage trucks from Canada crossing the border and traveling down I69 towards Flint, Michigan. Why were we accepting their recycling or whatever was in the trucks?

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by Bambi

I lived in Michigan - not far from Sarnia. Everyday there was a parade of garbage trucks from Canada crossing the border and traveling down I69 towards Flint, Michigan. Why were we accepting their recycling or whatever was in the trucks?

I did not realize there were Canadian garbage trucks crossing the border into Michigan.
Why indeed would you be accepting any garbage or recycling from Canada?
Perhaps it just composting? How long ago was this happening?
I think you already have enough challenges in the USA as far as recycling goes.

[Midnight Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by Bambi

I lived in Michigan - not far from Sarnia. Everyday there was a parade of garbage trucks from Canada crossing the border and traveling down I69 towards Flint, Michigan. Why were we accepting their recycling or whatever was in the trucks?

Originally Posted by Barefoot

I did not realize there were Canadian garbage trucks crossing the border into Michigan.
Why indeed would you be accepting any garbage or recycling from Canada?
Perhaps it just composting? How long ago was this happening?
I think you already have enough challenges in the USA as far as recycling goes.

At the risk of sounding really stupid, could the Canadian trucks be picking up recyclable stuff as opposed to taking things to the U. S.???

[ColdNoMore]

A quick search turned this up.

Canadian Garbage to Michigan Landfills (stir here)

February 19, 2018

After years of decline, Canada's dirty diapers, coffee grounds and banana peels are once again being trucked to Michigan in a major way.

The reason? Michigan's abundant landfills and low fees make it a preferred destination for trash from other states and other countries.

"Michigan has made its regulations as landfill-friendly and trash-friendly as any state in the country," said Mike Garfield, executive director of The Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor-based environmental nonprofit.

The amount of Canadian solid waste imported to Michigan jumped 19% from fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 2017, to nearly 10.6 million cubic yards, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's latest annual solid waste report. That’s enough trash to fill 881,000, three-axle dump trucks. Those dump trucks, lined up bumper-to-bumper, would stretch from Florida’s Atlantic Coast to California’s Pacific Coast and back to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas.

NOT to dump garbage where it's allowed, with the least expensive overall cost...would be dumb.

As a general rule, with my extensive lifelong interaction with a lot of average Canadian's...they are anything but dumb.

[New Englander]

Originally Posted by Midnight Cowgirl

Obviously, Ontario is going overboard and doing the right thing with trash, garbage, etc.
I applaud their efforts and everyone who abides by their rules.

I think to myself how something such as you described will NEVER happen in TV. Can you imagine?
Half the residents here complain and moan about just having a trash can and the developer obviously has no plans to change the way things are done!

Going the extra mile here just isn't in anyone's agenda to do the right thing to help the environment.
I see no beneficial results happening.

Yup. Most people here are inherently lazy and can't be bothered.
It's sad that the next generations are the ones who will be paying the price for all the things we aren't doing.

How did you come to this conclusion?

[Barefoot]

I had no clue that other states and other countries were trucking their garbage to Michigan. I'm gobsmacked.
It's a strong visual to say that dirty diapers can be trucked to Michigan.
If Michigan does offer low fees and abundant landfills, is it possible that The Villages can truck garbage to Michigan?
But I think this thread is about the lack of recycling.

P.S. Banana peels and coffee grounds can be composted.

[ColdNoMore]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

I had no clue that other states and other countries were trucking their garbage to Michigan. I'm gobsmacked.
It's a strong visual to say that dirty diapers can be trucked to Michigan.
If Michigan does offer low fees and abundant landfills, is it possible that The Villages can truck garbage to Michigan?
But I think this thread is about the lack of recycling.

P.S. Banana peels and coffee grounds can be composted.

What's even harder for me to believe, is that up until 1992 New York City was towing barges of human waste out to sea...and just dumping it!

NYC Sludge (Flush Here)

In March, 1986, when New York started loading up barges with human waste and dumping it into the Atlantic, 106 miles off the coast, the EPA told environmentalists not to worry, that sludge wasn’t going to affect the ocean -- hell, it wasn't even making its way to the bottom.

The EPA's argument was that the ocean was so vast, when the barges dumped the sludge it would disperse harmlessly into the trillions of gallons of saltwater. That’s when the benthic guys, those scientists that are very interested in the activity down on the sea floor, called their bluff.

Starting in 1989, a team of bacteriologists, ecologists, chemists, geologists, and biologists went out to the 106-mile site on multiple expeditions, diving over and over in a tiny submarine to gather data.

What did they find? The waste HAD affected the ocean.

It had settled on the bottom, 2,500 meters down. More than that, it had left a vast footprint, covering an area of 80 square nautical miles with a film 5 centimeters deep.

Simply nuts IMHO.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by New Englander

How did you come to this conclusion?

It's a hypothesis. My hypothesis is similar, but different: Most people in The Villages have a sense of entitlement, and refuse to be pro-active in cleaning up the environment because it'd mean inconveniencing themselves, or making their front yard look a little less perfect, or it'd mean (heavens forfend) composting, which is what farmers and people who live in tiny homes do, not THEM.

[Kilmacowen]

Originally Posted by jazuela

it's a hypothesis. My hypothesis is similar, but different: Most people in the villages have a sense of entitlement, and refuse to be pro-active in cleaning up the environment because it'd mean inconveniencing themselves, or making their front yard look a little less perfect, or it'd mean (heavens forfend) composting, which is what farmers and people who live in tiny homes do, not them.

wow!!!

[Midnight Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by Midnight Cowgirl

Obviously, Ontario is going overboard and doing the right thing with trash, garbage, etc.
I applaud their efforts and everyone who abides by their rules.

I think to myself how something such as you described will NEVER happen in TV. Can you imagine?
Half the residents here complain and moan about just having a trash can and the developer obviously has no plans to change the way things are done!

Going the extra mile here just isn't in anyone's agenda to do the right thing to help the environment.
I see no beneficial results happening.

Yup. Most people here are inherently lazy and can't be bothered.
It's sad that the next generations are the ones who will be paying the price for all the things we aren't doing.

Originally Posted by New Englander

How did you come to this conclusion?

If you look at the ongoing comments regarding doing anything to help environmental things, you will see that many residents are against them. I say against them because they do nothing to show they are doing anything positive; progressive thinking is not in most people's vocabulary. I'm not just speaking about recent comments. I'm speaking about comments that have been ongoing for years.

I see plastic items in trash bags on trash day -- not for recycling but in with other trash.
Maybe 1% of residents compost (1% is even doubtful) and there are many residents who throw compostable garbage in with their trash.

Do you know how many plastic bags are going into the landfill on a weekly basis? Thousands! And they will never disintegrate in our lifetime and perhaps not even at all!
But residents don't want trash cans and some even say they will still use plastic bags. Why???

Truthfully, if anything progressive or ecologically sound is to happen regarding trash, it must begin with the developer.

How many people do you know who refuse to buy water in plastic bottles?
Frankly, I don't know anyone who doesn't, but I don't and won't. And no; I'm not perfect, but I do try.

Should I go on? I think you get my drift. Enough said!

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by Midnight Cowgirl

If you look at the ongoing comments regarding doing anything to help environmental things, you will see that many residents are against them. I say against them because they do nothing to show they are doing anything positive; progressive thinking is not in most people's vocabulary. I'm not just speaking about recent comments. I'm speaking about comments that have been ongoing for years.

I see plastic items in trash bags on trash day -- not for recycling but in with other trash.
Maybe 1% of residents compost (1% is even doubtful) and there are many residents who throw compostable garbage in with their trash.

Do you know how many plastic bags are going into the landfill on a weekly basis? Thousands! And they will never disintegrate in our lifetime and perhaps not even at all!
But residents don't want trash cans and some even say they will still use plastic bags. Why???

Truthfully, if anything progressive or ecologically sound is to happen regarding trash, it must begin with the developer.

How many people do you know who refuse to buy water in plastic bottles?
Frankly, I don't know anyone who doesn't, but I don't and won't. And no; I'm not perfect, but I do try.

Should I go on? I think you get my drift. Enough said!

The last time I was down there adding more furniture to my house, I decided to see how I could do without buying a case of water. But I still prefer the taste of spring water (not distilled or "drinking water," ewww). So I bought one of those huge jugs that you turn sideways and use the built-in spigot to pour it into your glass.

And I used a half-litre bottle that was already empty, which I cleaned out every time I emptied it. I absolutely need to be able to carry around a bottle of water that won't leak, and is small enough to fit in my purse. So my thermos is not a good option for me, and those small water bottles are perfect.

Turns out there's a learning curve to those jugs. They pour all over the floor and your wrist til you figure it out! Especially if it's first thing in the morning and you don't have your glasses on yet.

But after the first couple of days I was an old pro. It's much less expensive than the case of bottles and takes up less room overall.
I'll just have to adjust the shelving in the fridge a notch, and then it'll be just right.

Yes it's still a plastic jug. But it's one plastic jug that is fully recyclable instead of 28 individual water bottles.