Life Without Plastic - Day Three

Technically, I'm starting with a holdover from Day Two. After work, I had to go to a meeting, and there were water, coffee and snacks on the table. I refused the coffee in a Styrofoam cup (for taste reasons at least as much as plastic avoidance) and the plastic-wrapped snacks. However, I unthinkingly poured myself some water into a plastic glass. I could have/should have refilled my water bottle, either from the pitcher or at the sink at the end of the room. Total fail.

I did use my ceramic bowl to heat today's chickpea soup, as promised. The bowl has my favourite pastel colours and fish painted on. Both made me surprisingly happy. I also remembered to bring in two bottles of water.

Today's reflection on opportunities lost relates to garbage. It is trash day in my neighborhood, so I put out a plastic bag full of trash. Partly I use a plastic bag because I don't have ready access to my garbage bins - my house doesn't have a garage, so I need to go outside and put any trash into bins stored in a little shed at the side of the house. I don't have paper bags for my waste baskets any more. I'm not sure if any stores even carry paper bags these days. I could buy composting bags, but I wouldn't actually be able to compost them. Therefore, it is easiest to collect all the indoor trash into a single large bag. I use old milk bags as my primary kitchen garbage, but just use bins in most other rooms. I could use more milk bags (my mom keeps saving them and giving them to me), but I would have to pour trash into the relatively tiny bag mouth, since I rarely have enough trash in any single bin to make it worthwhile to put a bag in the bin and throw the whole thing out. Further, the city of Ottawa's bylaws state that:

CONTAINER STANDARDS
21. No owner or building owner, shall set out a receptacle or container for collection that:
(a) is not an approved container;
(b) is unsightly to the neighbouring environment;
(c) emits a foul or offensive odour;
(d) harbours or attracts rats, other vermin or insects;
(e) contains waste that falls out of or protrudes from it;
(f) is unclean or unsanitary;
(g) has graffiti; or
(h) is damaged to the extent that it is unsafe to manoeuvre.

Curbside plastic garbage bags shall have the following characteristics:
(a) have a capacity of not more than zero point one five (0.15) m3 and not less than zero point zero eight (0.08) m3;
(b) not weigh in excess of fifteen (15) kg when put out for collection;
(c) be in compliance with the standards for plastic garbage published by the Canadian General Standards Board in November of 1995 as CAN/CGSB-156.1;
(d) be non returnable;
(e) be securely tied when set out for collection;
(f) not be more than zero point eighty three (0.83) m in height and zero point sixty six (0.66) m in width; and,
(g) not include plastic shopping bags or garbage bags that are smaller than the approved size set out in subsections 2 (a) and 2(f).

So, my options are to fill unwanted small bags that are already in my house (messy) and put them into my bins (possibly inaccessible) or keep using garbage bags. Luckily, this experiment is only for a month and garbage is collected only once every two weeks. I can try the small bag experiment once.

Day three ended with buying food for the girl at a food court. She got Thai food in a paper box, and a can of mango juice, but her bamboo chopsticks came wrapped in plastic. Better than the alternatives, I guess, but maybe not quite as good as home-cooked. Mind you, I had tacos. The meat came in a plastic-wrapped Styrofoam container, and I used pre-made tortillas that were sold in a plastic bag; at least I used home-made taco spices instead of plastic-lined packets of pre-made, even though the bulk spices originally came in plastic bags.

Life Without Plastic - Day Four

So far, so good. I am running low on milk, though, so I have looked up Cochrane's Dairy. They still deliver milk, in glass bottles, in my neighbourhood. I haven't decided yet whether it is more efficient, in terms of overall pollution, than just going to the store. Cochrane's has a truck that goes door-to-door; I know this because it has often woken me up at 5 am when it delivers to my neighbour.

I usually buy my milk at the nearby grocery store - usually as part of a large shopping trip when I'm in the car anyway, but sometimes I will get off the bus early and walk home with the milk, or stop in when cycling. Plastic doesn't break down easily, but glass can get broken and it needs washing (I still remember the dangers of algae blooms from phosphates in our soap. Wikipedia has a good article on the issue here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom, including a picture of the 2011 algae bloom on Lake Erie. I would have included a link to the Environment Canada site on the issue of algae and keeping the Great Lakes clean, but the link appears to be dead). Also, small dairies may have challenges with environmental regulations, as Cochrane's faced last year: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/cochrane-s-dairy-charged-with-dumping-waste-water-into-river-1.2545377. On the other hand, if they are using organic milk and supporting smaller farmers, they may be helping to reduce the algae blooms, or worse, caused by over-concentration of cattle waste. Remember Walkerton? Other factors led to the tragedy, but the illness itself was caused by e-coli contaminated water run-off from a dairy farm into a well that fed the town's water system.

Cochrane's doesn't seem to have a public web page, but I have requested a price list and link to the web site via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cochranes-Dairy-Ltd/265550186809349. I'm curious to see what I learn. If all else fails, I'll ask Tom up the street.