Do you feel guilt or remorse when you separate your plastic lids and caps from the recyclable plastic bottles and have to toss them in the trash?  I do. I also have to confess that I put recyclable items that are not accepted by my facility, Marin Sanitary, into my recycling bins, so they can be the last ones to have their hands on them and dispose of the plastic that they don’t recycle. If they’re not going to recycle them because there is “no market for it” then let them live with the guilt!  I put that in quotes, because that is exactly what a woman told me yesterday when I called to ask them some questions. I would love to get a return phone call from them with answers to why they don’t recycle bottle caps or other recyclable plastic containers that are not in bottle form. The woman who answered talked in circles and then said something about “a lot of it goes to China anyway” – whatever that means!  So, I am patiently waiting for a return call from someone more knowledgeable.

If you’ve read my Plastic Challenge post, you know that we have cut down our plastic consumption in our home.  I can’t live with the knowledge of what this disposable lifestyle has done and continues to do to our oceans and marine life.  After reading some statistics at Good Magazine about the plastics in our oceans I have been trying to find more solutions.  Here is what Good Magazine has to say:

“Ninety percent of the trash floating in the world’s oceans is plastic.  In every square mile of ocean, according to some estimates, floats nearly 50,000 pieces of plastic. In the Pacific Gyre, most of that plastic comes from four sources”:

Low-density polyethylene (plastic bags)
Polypropylene (bottle caps)
Polyethylene terephthalate (plastic water bottles)
Expanded styrene (Styrofoam)

We have a long way to go, but the main message that I see getting across everyday is taking reusable bags with you. Some stores, like Whole Foods have eliminated plastic bags.  An organization in San Francisco called Save the Bay launched a campaign in April to eliminate plastic bag pollution in California. They are working to pass legislation that would require a 25 cent fee on both paper and plastic bags distributed by retailers. Fees on single-use bags have proven effective in Ireland, reducing their use by 90% and their plastic bag litter by 93% in just one year!

I witness people carrying reusable stainless steel and aluminum water bottles with them instead of purchasing plastic bottles of water, everyday. Maybe this economy is helping the Green Movement.  Why pay for something when you can get it for free at home? Just make sure you’ve got a good water filter that also eliminates fluoride. Again, we have a long way to go, but this message is getting out there.

We never buy disposable Styrofoam in our home.  The only Styrofoam that has made it past our door recently was inside my computer box (after my laptop died).  I purchase my vitamins from my former employer, Biotics Research in Texas, and I love that they use potato starch packing peanuts instead of Styrofoam.  Currently, California doesn’t recycle Styrofoam, but in 2007, the City of San Francisco banned restaurants from using Styrofoam to serve food or drinks.  In Sacramento, Assembly member Jerry Hill has introduced Bill AB1358 which prohibits the use of Styrofoam in food packaging.  Here are the California cities that have banned polystyrene food packaging:

the cities of Millbrae, Santa Monica, Malibu, Capitola, San Francisco, Calabasas, Huntington Beach, Aliso Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Oakland, Emeryville, Scotts Valley, Pacific Grove, Newport Beach; and the counties of Ventura, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma (What are you waiting for Marin, Los Angeles and West Hollywood?!)

Lastly, what about those guilt-laden bottle caps? I have tried cutting down my purchases of plastic items with lids. I opt for glass whenever possible, but there isn’t always an organic choice in glass with a metal lid.  And, some of those metal lids are lined with BPA. (And we all know what’s going on with the BPA industry right now!)  I plan on doing some of my own canning, but it isn’t realistic for us to give up everything in a plastic bottle.  So, I was thrilled today to get my daily Ideal Bite tip about Aveda taking back bottle caps and lids to be recycled!  They just launched this program at New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009. I am going to save a bunch of them up and bring them to an Aveda store or one of their partnering stores or schools that will get them to Aveda for recycling.

Learn more about how Albatross mothers are feeding these lids to their chicks and I hope you’ll start collecting yours to give to Aveda too.