I hope this America Recycles Day is laden with WILL DO spirit. Over the past several years, recycling initiatives have spanned the gamut from reducing disposable plastic bag use to implementing single stream collection. So, how is recycling progressing?
Unless you live in San Francisco (Ground Zero for an A+ in Recycling), the results may be surprising. Despite our best intentions, many locally implemented efforts seem to be waning.
In my town, the local grocery store is packing goods in very thin, disposable plastic bags and no longer offers shoppers the choice to purchase reusable shopping bags. These disposable bags are so weak everything must now be double bagged! To make matters worse, both the grocery store and the local Walmart (where shoppers recycled these disposable bags) have removed their recycling bins dedicated to plastic grocery bag recycling. Now recycling conscious shoppers have no convenient place to recycle the disposable bags! Let’s stop using these nasty, disposable bags and get back to I WILL remember to bring a reusable bag for my shopping trip with me!
How about those cash register receipts that are long enough to be used as garlands for our fireplace mantels? Last week during a shopping spree at CVS, I purchased 3 items and received a 29 inch sales receipt at checkout! This recently posted Instagram photo illustrates the receipt problem well.
