The other day I was thinking what a silly thing those garbage bags people buy to keep trash cans clean and the garbage together until it gets smashed in the back of garbage truck or lit in the burning barrel. Few things can you say you are directly paying for to buy then as part of it’s use paying for it get rid of it.
Now I get the advantage of garbage bags — they keep the trash can relatively clean and the trash together when you throw it in the dumpster. Trash trucks find loading trash cans and dumpsters with bagged garbage easier. If you burn your own, then it helps keep you from accidentally melting your trash can dumping the trash in burn barrel. But it still seems kind of silly to be spending money on something you buy to throw away.
Years ago, people didn’t use trash bags nearly as much. Maybe because the plastics were more expensive, maybe because it was more of a new thing. People might bag their kitchen garbage, but it was rare for regular waste baskets around the house or office to have trash bags. Maybe before recycling was big, the paper would line the cans and keep them neater. But I still can’t believe people spend money to throw it away.
Honestly, when I think I own my own land, I’ll just use the plastic or paper bags I get from the store and use them to line my wastebaskets or feed bags for the kitchen garbage. I don’t produce that much trash, and honestly if I am going to burn the burnable trash, the smaller bags are easier and quicker to chuck in the fire I have out back and burn. With a serious commitment to reduce waste and compost, honestly I think using the small bags you get for free really is a better way to go.
America produces more waste per capita than any other country in the world. And recycling, which was once considered the solution to that problem, isn’t really working anymore. Recycling works, but it’s not magic. As America continues to lead the world in per capita waste production, it’s becoming more and more clear that everybody-- manufacturer and consumers-- “over-believe” in recycling.
Most organic chemicals are strings or carbon and hydrogen linked together, two of the most common chemicals on earth. Benzene, xylene and toluene are exclusively those compounds. They’re very good solvents often make up a portion of plastics and oil and gas turned into fuel because they burn well. At proper stoimetric ratios when burned all they create is water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Likewise even the famously poison cyanide is just carbon and hydrogen with a nitrogen atom tacked on. That’s why automakers have to limit cyanide emissions and why cigarette smoke contain cyanide – it’s not intentional to poison smokers. Wood smoke and candles also contain cyanide gas – especially with the carbon monoxide rich yellow flames from combustion.
We often think that toxins like benzene, toluene, xylene or even cyanide are man made but often they’re as commonly natural as man made. They’re not elemental toxins like lead or mercury – they’re actually made up from much more common building blocks from the earth.
Helicopters. Cargo containers. Old washing machines. For years, fishermen dumped this waste into the Gulf of Mexico. But they weren't just trying to get rid of junk; they were trying to create artificial reefs that would help attract fish. For this month's Nature Quest, WWNO coastal reporter Eva Tesfaye takes a (metaphorical) dive into the gulf to find out if Alabama's ocean junkyard is an economic – and environmental – solution.
In 1953, the vermont State Legislature banned the name of non-returnable bottles. In 1957, the ban was repealed. At that time, the glass manufacturers argued that farmers exaggerated their claims of cows being injured by picking up splinters of glass in their stomach or that farm machinery was being damaged by roadside glass. The industry was being picked on, the manufacturers charged.
In 1971, with a reapportioned legislature and an important tourist economy, Vermont may be on the threshold of repeating its legislative action of almost two decades ago. One of the sponsors of the bill to ban sale of no-deposit beverage container is Frank L. Butnig from Brandon, Vermont.
If you support the legislation, please write Mr. Bunting or Governor Dean C. Davis, Montpellier, Vermont.
