Year 2, Week 14 Results: 2.2 oz of plastic waste. Ice Cream Party!

I am late getting last week’s plastic tally up. But you would be too if you were busy tallying and labeling and adding to a spreadsheet all the Brita filters that people were sending you from all over North America. I have no choice; I’m an accountant to the core and find a good spreadsheet to be a thing of beauty.

So, now that I’m finished for the moment with that particular work of art, here’s last week’s plastic tally, which includes a bunch more things I found while cleaning out a bathroom cabinet.

Plastic items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• Caps from 4 sample tubes of Renova skin treatment. Got these from a dermatologist years and years ago. The tubes are metal, but the caps are plastic. None of them have been opened. Technically, this stuff is a drug (you need a prescription for it) so I’ll see if I can return it to Elephant Pharmacy or other place that takes back old medication.
• 2 bottles of Voltaren ophthalmic drops with caps. Also never opened and also a drug to be returned.
• 1 piece of scotch tape from outer box of Voltaren drops.
• 1 bottle of Zymar ophthalmic drops and cap. Antibiotic drops for eyes. Old drug return.
• 1 bottle of Clerz and 1 bottle of Muro eye drops plus caps. Old eye drops that are basically salt water. I poured them down the drain. I sure have had my share of eye issues.
• 1 sample of Body Shop eye supplement & cap. Never used.
• Another used up nasty synthetic sponge. Green Bean, if you think you can get some more use out of it, I’ll totally mail it to you. If you can get out the slime that is deeply embedded in this thing, you are truly a super hero.

And the new plastic waste (the fun part!):

• 5 plastic rings from around the necks of jars of Fudge IS My Life fudge sauce and 1 plastic ring from a carton of Bud’s ice cream.

  
  We had an ice cream party to use up the rest of the fudge sauce! We invited our friends to bring ice cream, and we provided dark chocolate, chocolate orange, chocolate mint, and chocolate ginger fudge sauces as well as butterscotch sauce and chopped nuts. The only thing missing was whipped cream, but really no one missed it until I thought of it just now.

  Yes, the ice cream cartons are lined with plastic, for those who weren’t here when this fact was first revealed. And no, I don’t tally them. (See the explanation here.) They go in our city’s green compost bin. It’s a gray area. We could make our own ice cream, but there would still be plastic in the milk or cream container: either a plastic-lined cardboard carton or a glass bottle with a plastic cap. Dairy is never plastic-free in these parts.

  So, this ends the ongoing litany of fudge sauce plastic seals! (Dad, do not get any bright ideas about sending more. My body can’t take it!) It has been quite the decadent summer. But fall is here. Time to slow down with the sweets and get with the exercise program. Now that I’m sleeping better, I need to start moving my body again.

• Plastic cap from a glass bottle of Spectrum almond oil. I can’t find the plastic insert that the cap twists onto. Why do these things need to be plastic in the first place? But I found a great stopper for the bottle in my wine cork stash: a champagne cork that was not too narrow or too fat. It’s a much better solution than plastic anyway.
• 1 blister sample pack of sleeping pills (the kind that Clif takes!) Yep, I found a drug to help me sleep for now. We’ll see if I need it forever. Maybe not. Maybe just until I develop some good habits. Or maybe I will. I don’t have the prejudice against psychotropic drugs that some people do. To be quite honest, a few of them saved my life several years ago. I’m all for the natural solutions — exercise, diet, meditation, etc. — but some people are just born with the funkiest of brain chemistry and it definitely runs in my family. This is not a confession. It’s a fact of life.
• And finally, plastic window from an ING Direct envelope. I get my statements online, but for some reason, there are a few notices they will only send through the mail.

Thanks for your patience these days. I’m getting a lot of sleep and other work done. Tomorrow, Allie has graciously written a guest post about plastic use during her travels. Thank you, Allie!

What else this week? Maybe a follow-up on tomato travails and other gardening issues. You could use a good laugh, right?
 

Comments

Comments

7 Comments on Year 2, Week 14 Results: 2.2 oz of plastic waste. Ice Cream Party!

Anonymous on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 12:09 am


Yay! It’s good to hear that you are sleeping. I am looking forward to hearing tomato stories.

~kt

Anonymous on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 12:10 am


I just looked at my time stamp…it’s actually 8 in the morning here.

Fake Plastic Fish on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 12:28 am


Anonymous, are you in the U.K.?

Okay, it is almost 12:30am in California. But that’s actually early for me! (You have no idea.)

Going to bed right now!

SusanB on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 7:53 am


Butterscotch sauce — did you make it? I love love butterscotch sundaes. Details pray tell. We keep an ice cream maker at the office and have an ice cream sundae party every now and then (it keeps my boss happy).

Anonymous on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 8:53 am


Oops. Anonymous is kt. I realised that 12:09 was an ironic time to say that I was glad you were sleeping…

except that you weren’t :S

I am indeed in the UK, so I was reading your post over breakfast.

~kt

The Green Cat on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 11:18 am


Now that your spreadsheet is all done and pretty…I’ve got 6 more filters to send you from the Freecycle event last week. I’ve been holding them because Juli and I were trying to hook into another event but I’m not sure if that will fly yet. Anyway–should I be labeling these as “NYC” so you know where they originated? I’ll get them to you as soon as I know if we’ll be collecting at this other event.

Abbie on Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 12:46 pm


Sounds like you’re going to have to get a dairy cow, breed her (so she produces milk… you can keep the calf or not), milk into a metal pail, then make the ice cream yourself.

I know it sounds crazy… but for ice cream it might be worth it!

Tell me what you're thinking...

Name (required)

Email Address (will not be published)(required)

Website

Speak your mind

Click the CommentLuv check box to show a link to your latest post.