Less bags. Even garbage bags can be avoided if slimy food waste can go in a separate compost bin.

Knowing what's best for the environment can be a confusing. Using the least amount of bags is best tho.

This British study, says that plastic shopping bags might have a lower footprint on the environment than cloth. To put it another way, one would have to reuse a heavy cloth bag over 100 times for it to have less of a footprint than the cheapest plastic bags. That has to do with what it takes to grow the cotton, make the bag and so forth.

Still, I am skeptical due to the effect of discarded plastic waste in the environment, however many plastics are biodegradable. The best strategy is to reuse the bag many times, or not use a bag.

Personally, I use my bicycle panniers. I guess even folks who drive don't have to use shopping bags either. Just roll the shopping cart out to your vehicle and put your groceries into reusable containers. I bring the cart to my bicycle and load my panniers. Actually I just use the store's shopping basket as I seldom buy many groceries in one trip.

This radio interview overlooked a big elephant in the room. The automobile. What effect does driving to the store have on the environment? In my case, I live in a dense urban neighborhood so I can walk, or bike to the store each day.

Here in Bellingham, plastic shopping bags have been banned by city ordinance. Stores have to charge extra for a bag which is usually paper. I never buy the bag. Paper bags may be worse for the environment than plastic as they are heavier (more material) and they tend to degrade so they can be less reusable.

This British study also compared the impact of paper bags. It says that their manufacture places a bigger footprint on the environment than the cheapest plastic. Paper bags lie somewhere between plastic and cloth as to the impact of their manufacture on the environment.

Plastic trash bags are an issue also. I seldom use them at home

For garbage, I am fortunate living near the Bellingham Food Co-Op where there is a green waste. Food scraps that tend to turn smelly in garbage can be carefully placed in the green bin to become compost. Other "dry" wastes, like plastics, can be kept clean for recycling.

As I've written about before, biodegradable plastic shouldn't go with other plastics as that degrades the mix. I try and put that in the compost bin, or it that is not available in regular trash.

Basically, I really don't use garbage bags at home. Living close to waste bins, I separate and take things there. Some things, especially stuff made from mixed materials, I do put directly in the dumpster. No need for a garbage bag, I just take it directly there. Food waste is the worse stuff for going to the dumpster if there is no bag, but use of the green waste bin seems to solve that messy problem.

I'll admit, where I work, we sure go through a lot of plastic garbage bags. At work, I try to reuse the huge amount of trash bags they use for dirty towels. I give the bags a second life lining trash bins in my work area. (I'm a custodian at a YMCA). They tried reusable cloth bags for the dirty towels, but they don't last. They tear too easy.

A more useful game. The goal of who can create the cleanest, best sorted stream for recycling.

If I had the bully pulpit, one thing I would tweet about would be recycling. We could create a game that would have the goal of producing the most usable recycling stream for industry. Teams could be formed from companies, organization and so forth to compete over how useful their recycling streams become. Similar to organizations competing on Bike to Work Day over what percentage of their employees bike. The contest would be about the recycling and garbage streams we produce. Are things cleaned and separated? What type of bins do we need. More than one bin for different types of plastic? This could be a game of strategy. Especially needed, these days, now that China no longer wants to sort our waste. If we lived more intentionally and thought about things like this, rather than just sports and video games, our recycling could become more useful to our industry and our planet could be cleaner.

Should compost able plastic cups go into plastic recycling? The answer is NO.

Apparently, it is better to put them in the regular trash if there isn't a green compost bin. Recycled plastic goes into making new plastic, or building materials such as Trex decking. The compost able cups are made from a different material that contaminates the plastic recycling process. Best to put composting cups into the compost able bin with food scraps, but if such a bin is not available, I guess the regular trash. Lots of people wouldn't know this.

Learning to be good at the game of creating a more usable waste stream. Intentional living. Here is a set of bins at Bellingham Food Coop with examples of what should go where. Still, the compost plastic is not mentioned. Here, it would go into the compost bin along with the fork and spoon which, in this case, are made from a special kind of cornstarch that can be composted. Most plastic utensils are not for compost. Many recycling stations don't have a compost bin. They only have recycling or trash. In that case, I would guess the compost plastic is better in the trash.

Recycling awning cover isn't always a good idea

As paint over wears thin, the former identity starts to break through. Was once the Newsstand International. Now is a smoke shop. I would have not noticed, walking past frequently, but a friend was visiting town and saw it right away. Looks a bit cheap. Smoking is kind of a tacky habit anyway.

Plastic shopping bags will soon be banned in Bellingham

Reusable bags have sure improved over the years. They are preferable to the plastic or paper. Reusable bag pictured above.

Back in the 1980s, when plastic bags were fairly new, people started worrying about their environmental impact. I remember writing a letter to the editor defending plastic bags against paper bags. As a non driver, I liked the plastic over paper since paper crumbled in rain and tore easily. That was from the perspective of a non driver. Most environmentalists who worried about the bags still drove cars.

Back then, reusable bags were coming out also, but I think I remember some were $10. Now the reusable bags have gotten cheaper and better so I can withdraw my support for plastic bags.

This election is ready for the recycling bin

Click on image to see some of the slogans, or maybe you're sick of them.

If you don't like the political mood of the country, just wait a minute. It seems to change on a dime. So many contradictory interests among the people who are upset if they can't have it all; interests that are exacerbated with all that campaign rhetoric bloated in money.

It's time to dump another election into the recycling bin and just wait a few, figuratively speaking, moments. Our political climate keeps changing.

At least, for now, there's a place to recycle all that paper.

One thing we have needed for many years, and not gotten, is a bit more patience. Patience among the people and especially patience among all the special interests, which are somewhat the people's interests in disguise.

Special interests are the people's interests jacked up with money and on steroids. Special interests have been hyped, sliced and diced.

Now it's time to take all that campaign stuff and grind it back up into pulp. Make new paper.

Less clutter for the new year

My bank now offers the option to receive it's monthly statements on-line. I take it. Less paper to clutter my small room.

A PDF file, or something like that to neatly archive into one of the folders on my drive, taking up mere molecules of space. This helps for living in a "small footprint place."

It's not a "paper trail," but I trust the system is still transparent and accountable. After all, it's just money anyway. Maybe I should be more worried. Money is one of America's Gods. Still, what's a little money?

So far, I've never had any problem with bank inaccuracies. Of course, maybe I'm not paying enough attention. I don't always read the mass of paper that's been burping out of the financial institutions, mutual funds, insurance companies and so forth I deal with. It's kind of mundane and the type is a bit too small.

Grey type isn't that motivating. Maybe they should sprinkle a few shirtless "college boy bank tellers" into the statement.

And I don't have that much money anyway. Just a dab, here and a dab there. Not like owning a quarter million dollar Bellingham home.

Hope all the financial institutions I deal with can go just about paperless in the next while. This pile is headed off to recycling. It's from just a few months.

I could use the space.