Life Without Plastic - Day Three

[siglinde99]

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.

Comments

[wareham-v.livejournal.com]

Life in town! Between the private contractors collecting our garbage, and by-laws about clear garbage bags, I'm probably producing more garbage now than I did when I first moved down.
The contractors decided we weren't really an apartment building, though the city thinks we are, so now we have to tag all our trash, Before I might put two tiny bags, or one, or none, per week into the building bins.
And I have to buy clear bags, as opposed to recycling any of the seeming endless plastic bags that come from everywhere, even though all my own groceries go into cloth bags. Those white or coloured plastic bags now have to become part of my trash; I can't even put them in the recycling!
And because there's still only a small variety of clear bags for buying, I then have to put my small amount of weekly trash into a bag that's way too big for it, because I don't have anywhere to store and accumulate.
At least the town collects green waste and composts. Though you can spend an awful amount of time on their website trying to decide which stream some things are allowed to go into, and eventually garbaging things that *might* be recyclable...
v

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

We don't have the clear bag restriction, but the rest sounds depressingly familiar.