This Green Life Readers: Please let me know what you think of my latest column on paper vs plastic bags — and how you deal with the problem in your own life. You can also pose questions here, so I, NRDC staff and other readers can respond.
I’d also love to hear how many disposable bags you use on average when you visit the market.
I’ll go first and reveal all to make it easy: my average is two disposable bags per trip to supplement the two reusable bags (a knapsack and a canvas bag) I usually bring with me. I generally shop by foot, which is why I only need four bags altogether. How about you?
Related posts:
This Green Blog is the companion blog to 
Hi, I want to welcome the readers of NRDC’s This Green Life to Sheryl’s new blog. Over the past years we’ve had wonderful comments and questions from TGL readers but no way to share them. Now we do. I hope you’ll come here often to express your thoughts about Sheryl’s columns and your own ideas and struggles with living a more sustainable life.
NRDC Membership staff will be reading the comments and commenting on posted questions with answers from NRDC’s environmental experts. By the way, if you didn’t take the time to link from Sheryl’s column to listen to Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top” do it now — it’s terrific and a real example of how great the internet is as a resource not JUST for green adice and environmental information.
Good afternoon,
I found your "Journal of Sorts" very interesting today. As I thought about it, I think that you may have an interest in what we at Con Edison are doing from a positive perspective to help the environment by reducing paper, and everything related to making paper. We are making significant efforts, and progress in migrating customers from both receiving and paying their bills by check to do so electronically. As a result of the above I will initially provide some information that you may find interesting and that I would gladly expound upon should you have an interest in including it in one of your writings. Furthermore, Con Edison is an original member of the national "Pay it Green" Alliance, http://www.payitgreen.org, where we and many of the Financuial Institutions throughout the country are attempting to educate consumers, related very specifically to the positive imnpact that they can have by migrating from paper to an electronic billing and payment envirnment.
Please see the attached as samples of what we have been doing.
http://www.greenbiz.com/feature/2008/10/20/e-billing-most-overlooked-green-practice
http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/Pay-Your-Electric-Bill-Online-and-Plant-a-Tree-64805.html?wlc=1226938424.
http://www.coned.com/newsroom/news/pr20081125.asp
Regards,
George
George K. Roach
Con Edison
Central Credit & Collections
Electronic Billing and Payments
212-780-8626
December 2, 2008 8:54 AM
Green Life,
I hate to burst anyones bubble and I know paper does biodegrade if handled in the correct way. But what a lot of people don’t know and maybe you, that the trash in our landfills today is so compacted(even paper) that it does not biodegrade as we think. If you have any doubts about this go to your local landfill and ask the people running it how it is constructed and used.What needs to be brought to attention of the cities and states that run these places is how to tap the methane gas available as a by-product of the trash and use it in some form.
Greg West
Cartersville,GA
Hi – love your article below. I’m one of the ones that needs the reminder taped up. I have about 6-7 canvas or material bags in the car for shopping. Sometimes I remember. What bothers me is the bags we use to throw out garbage. It’s very hard to get 100%biodegradable bags, if at all, and I found them once in Wal-mart, but since they flew off the shelves, they have not replenished them. Going to see Customer Service about that because I was told they would re-order and haven’t. They can be expensive online. I was wondering if you have a list of places that sell 100% biodegradable bags or if you know stores where you can get them? I’m on a mission in that respect. Companies that make plastic bags need to get on the ball and make them biodegradable to replace the use of plastic ones. I think if we can notify these companies to pressure them to stop making plastic bags that don’t disintegrate would be a good thing. I’m going to compile a list so that I can communicate my feelings. Anything you can do in that respect would be very well appreciated also besides all you do. Thanks very much. Giulietta
George – Con Ed is saving a lot of money by switching customers over to online billing. Have you considered passing those savings on to customers? It would be a great incentive and, after all, is only fair. No reason for customers to keep on paying the same amount if they’re suddenly costing you less. (Your one-time, $1 donation to Trees New York is really not the same thing.)
It would be good if you could encourage your online customers not to print at home, as that could wipe out any environmental gains.
I’m also wondering whether Con Ed has done all it can to green up its paper billing. Does it use unbleached, 100% post-consumer recycled paper? Does it use soy inks? Has it cut out all unnecessary flyers? There’s a real chance to help the environment here.
Greg, I agree, paper bags are not the answer; reusable bags are. If you read through my whole column on This Green Life, you’ll see that that’s what I was getting at.
Regarding your suggestion that something be done with the methane released by landfills — something is. Methane at hundreds of landfills across the country is captured and converted back into energy. There’s even an EPA program to support it.
Anonymous – I’m not sure how much point there is to biodegradable garbage bags, as nothing biodegrades readily in a landfill. Possibly they’re better for not being made of petroleum. (On the other hand, if they’re cornstarch bags, petroleum was probably used to help make the corn grow.) I would recommend focusing your energy on reducing your garbage, which will reduce the number of bags you need.
I am a recycler, an organic gardener, a composter, etc. and I recently purchased a pellet stove due to the high cost of oil, never realizing that the pellets come in plastic bags. I have called every place I can think of but no one seems to recycle these plastic bags. I contacted the stove store I bought the stove from and he said “this is a problem in the pellet industry”. So, I guess I’m not the only one concerned. The question is, is there anywhere that these bags can be recycled?
The best place to get recycling information for your locale is earth911.com. Just enter the item to be recycled and your zip code or city in the search form.
Reducing garbage is great and a given which we must do, but if you have to use bags to dispose your garbage, it’s better to dispose in non-plastic material that decomposes rather than to keep using plastic. The bags I use biodegrade rapidly and safely and are based on starch, vegetable oil and other renewable resources. No polyethylene is used and they are fully certified to be 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable. They are certified for use in organic agriculture also and leave no harmful residues. I will work on reducing my garbage. Gotta love recycling and 2nd hand stores also that recycle clothes and other items, and donating to others is a great way also to reduce garbage. But if you have trash, then we should trash it not in plastic. That’s my answer to that. Thanks. Giulietta
I suspect this subject may have been beaten to death, but I’ll write with the question anyway. I produce very little trash due to recycling and composting, often one grocery sack per week, averaging less than two. I use canvas bags for grocery sacks most of the time (I do forget them occasionally), but always use the plastic grocery bags for trash. They are then weighed down, and this saves buying additional plastic bags- something I haven’t done in ages. A recent article implied it would be better to buy the plastic sacks. Given my diligence, does this really make sense?
Finally, if more waste were burned (with appropriate scrubbing technology), what is your opinion on that assuming it was done to win back energy? Plastics are petroleum, whcih we burn anyway, and it seems a better use than landfills. Switzerland (where I live), for example, does this with most trash given no space for landfilles.
As an added point, in the Canton where I live (and most in the country, I think), you buy special trash bags, and must use them for your waste. They are loaded with taxes, which provides incentives to minimizing wastes and transfers costs to those producing the most. Works in a country where people are prepared to report those breaking the “social contract.”
Thanks,
Thomas
We couldn’t agree more with everything you wrote. It’s all about reusable and less packaging and retraining how we purchase and behave.
We started ECOBAGS in 1989 in NYC with this all in mind. Even NYC was onto it but then something happened – the 90′s and kaboom – we’re back but now it’s even a stronger social movement. Maybe now it’ll really kick in when everyone wakes up and realizes that garbage costs money, too.
Hi Sheryl,
I read your article about plastic bags and animal poop.
In regards to the cat litter you suggested, you failed to mention “World’s Best Cat Litter”. It is a corn product and fully flushable.
I didn’t realize about the Toxoplasma gondii danger, but with 13 (rescued) cats in the house, who never go outside, I flush half(upstairs by the bathroom) and use the plastic supermarket bags for the other half (downstairs in the basement no bathroom). Since I don’t use all the bags brought home, I take the rest back to the store
for recycling.
As for ridding yourself of animal poop in general, I found this on another ‘green’ website and it seems to be a great solution for those who live on their own property.
The url is:
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/43/1/Dealing-with-dog-poop.html
but the gist of the article is this:
“The other alternative aside from burying it in your garden or dumping dog poop into your bin is to consider installing a dog toilet, aka a doggy loo. These are special buckets with holes in the bottom you place into the ground on a bed of stones and then add an enzyme to which will break down the poop. When the bucket is full, you simply pour water into it and the broken down materials will flush away. There’s no risk to your plants, you can have the bucket hidden away in your garden.
You can buy a doggy loo already made up or create one yourself for just a few dollars using these very simple instructions. If you can’t find the septic treatment starter they recommend on the page, even active enzyme drain cleaner will do – it just consists of the “good” bacteria needed and is available at just about any hardware store. If you get the pellets, I’d recommend about a teaspoon dissolved in a cup of water thrown in.”
I’m sure it works just as well for kitty doo as long as the litter itself is biodegradable. Sounds like a plan!
Happy Scooping…;D
RedHawk: I agree, the doggy loo as you call it, otherwise known as a doggy doolie, pet waste digester and other names, would be my first choice, too, if I owned my property. I actually did cover this alternative in the column (http://nrdc.org/thisgreenlife/0801.asp).
About cat waste — whether your cats go out or not they still may have Toxoplasma so you might want to reconsider flushing.
As a cat lover, I do want to thank you for rescuing so many. We have 3 shelter cats in my home.
–Sheryl
I applaud your article. I wrote to Union of Concerned Citizens about the energy consumption of using plastic, Styrofoam and paper at social dinners (church, graduation, picnics, etc.) versus using washable dishes, utensils and place mats, i.e the hot water for sterilizing. They did not give an adequate answer. I realize the amount of jobs that would be affected if we got rid of these “plastics” and papers. Do you have ideas for replacing the jobs in the production, distribution, sales, junk collecting, landfill operating, etc. once we all use cloth bags again?