I was just informed that the recycling rules in SF have changed.
According to the SF Recycling website, the change is that plastic tubs can now be recycled. Oops, I was dumping those into recycling all along!
Why can't I put all plastic items in my blue cart? Unfortunately, not all plastic is acceptable because there are not companies that will take it all from us, (even if it has the recycling arrows on the bottom). We do accept: - Empty plastic bottles (#1 thru #7). A bottle has a neck smaller then its base, (i.e.: soda, shampoo, catsup, detergent).
- NEW: Plastic tubs and lids (#2, #4, & #5 only). Examples include yogurt, margarine and sour cream.
In the process of searching, I found an Oakland women's site with some great information. Especially her FAQ and the pages linked from there. - where plastic comes from (I think I was just having a conversation with someone about whether plastic came from oil)
- what can be recycled, why recycling is downcycling
- her experiences in trying to reduce consumption to 0 - she's had to give up tortillas since they ONLY come in plastic bags
BTW, one easy thing I can recommend to everyone is to always take your own re-usable bag(s) shopping. Just leave one in the car/entry/wherever so you have it when you need it. I know, you say that you use the paper/plastic bags from each trip for home purposes, but we've been doing this a while, and really, we always have enough back-store. I'll happily discuss with you :) And yes, I'm no angel. As one twitterer famously said, uh, yesterday"Until your tattoo ink and ironic hats can be shipped via fixie, I wouldn't get *too* smug about gas prices."
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No, I'm not talking about beer.
A number of reasons why you are better off drinking water from the tap instead of purchasing (over-marketed) bottled water.
My favorites cited reasons:
- Americans buy 28 billion water bottles a year, all that plastic and the energy used for manufacturing and transportation is very hard on the environment
- Why would you want to pay more for a product whose quality is worse than the water that flows from the faucet in your home?
- City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals, such as phthalate (a chemical that can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles); some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from the regulations regarding these chemicals.
- For those who feel tap water is any less clean than bottled water, filters may be purchased; buying filter cartridges once or twice a year requires much fewer resources than buying bottled water each day
So, whether it's your budget, the environment, or the convenience, bottled water is NOT the way to go. Like to carry it around? Purchase your own re-usable water bottle for less than the price of two "disposable" bottles! Plus remember, all that jazz about fresh mountain water? Usually a load of bull. Do you remember where Pepsi was getting its bottled water? c'mon, people.
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Just back from burning man, photos and stories to come, I'm sure.
Just thinking about my "limitations" about having only a bike, and not being able to carry large objects and stuff, i.e. leftover trashbags from our camp (like the recycling bags that exploded on the drive home, whoops) Then I came across a thread on sfbike about using trailers and saddlebags to carry more on a bike, which I should really follow up on.
Anyways, in the process, learned about the caltrain issues with adding more bike capacity to the caltrain runs (yes, it's annoying that the newer cars only hold 16 bikes) as well as prototypes of the wifi network on caltrain. Glad for the info, although I'm put off by the following statement:
A seamless broadband wireless network based on WiMAX technology would be a significant customer enhancement because it would allow Caltrain customers to work from their laptops and turn their commute time into productive office time. Wait a sec - my caltrain commute IS productive office time every day - I just download my work mail (it helps that we have a 12 hour offset from our India team that needs some catching up) and start in on it and any problems I can start before the day starts. So, um, will this be a free or charged service? Amtrak currently charges for its in-train service. Not the end of the world, but it would be nice to have expectations Now just 131 inbox and 1005 bug mails still to go through...
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cheerful