"Carryout Bag Reduction and Recycling Act"

[athena]

4. Thanks!

I agree it's just a start.

I went back and re-read what you wrote. That's interesting about having to put your recycling in plastic bags. My town provides two recycling bins, one for plastic and one for paper. So I put my recyclables in the bins directly, without any bags. Both bins go into the same truck, though. One day, I will go and visit the recycling center to find out what they do to separate the paper from the plastic. I read "Plastic Free" by Beth Terry recently and was horrified to find out that recycling companies are not required to recycle everything they get. As a result, plastic containers that are recyclable but don't look obviously recyclable end up in the landfill even if you put them in your recycling bin. Furthermore, plastic rarely ever gets recycled; it almost always gets down-cycled. The message I got from the book is that recycling is not enough: one has to avoid getting plastic in the first place.

My town has a great composting service (separate from trash pickup), but they're not allowing new signups for a while, as they're changing providers. I used to be an apartment dweller but have had a yard for a year and a half now. I've been afraid of composting on my own but should perhaps give it a try.