This article says a lot to us in 2020. /how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn't work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.
The industry's awareness that recycling wouldn't keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program's earliest days, we found. "There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis," one industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech.
Yet the industry spent millions telling people to recycle, because, as one former top industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true.The rest of this article has interviews with more people, including
Chevron Phillips Chemical's $6 billion (new plant in Texas)...their investment in new plastic..."We see a very bright future for our products," says Jim Becker, the vice president of sustainability for Chevron Phillips, inside a pristine new warehouse next to the plant...(a new petrolium/plastic plant.)And here's my organic greens package, which says it's a recycled plastic container, which can be recycled again. I'll sure try to recycle it again. But according to the article above, it's not likely to happen.
Just thought since I'm thinking about how to use less plastic, I'd share it with my SS friends.
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But more in line with Sepia Saturday's prompt...
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| The way I cooked when camping (1969-1998) |
And allowing a photographer to capture their efforts.
I feel sorry for the one in a white skirt. She is probably sitting on a camp stool (hidden by her skirts) If not, then she is a master of a squat - the exercise I can't hold for even 1 second!
So I went trolling (that's somewhat educated searching) through my old photo collection and found these other women (yes, it was always women!) cooking on wood stoves, or earlier at fireplaces.
Sepia Saturday has me beat...no billy cooking. I had to look up what a billy was...since I'd only heard of it in a song...Waltzing Matilda.
The term billy or billycan is particularly associated with Australian usage, but is also used in New Zealand, Britain and Ireland.
It is widely accepted that the term "billycan" is derived from the large cans used for transporting bouilli or bully beef on Australia-bound ships or during exploration of the outback, which after use were modified for boiling water over a fire; however there is a suggestion that the word may be associated with the Aboriginal billa(meaning water; cf. Billabong). SOURCE: WikipediaI have formerly posted a Sepia Saturday post about women cooking in fireplaces (for how many years?) and then cooking on wood-burning stoves, HERE.
Today's quote:
Input from experts is valuable but our own sense of the truth is ultimately the most important.
Daily Om
...plastic is a necessary evil.
ReplyDeleteWell, we did without it for many years of mankind's history. Perhaps becoming vegetarian, like I have this year, may lead me to being able to live without plastics...who knows.
DeleteOur new collector is somewhat stringent about what goes in the recycling bins. One week we do paper and cardboard. Containers are recycled on alternate weeks. If the plastic containers have a triangle, they can be recycled. Plastic bags etc cannot be recycled.
ReplyDeleteFor a while people were given some numbers in the triangles that were ok to recycle, and then everyone forgot what those were, and now everything is tossed into the recycle bins. But this article above says they really don't get recycled.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteTom is right, plastic is a necessary evil. I have bought some birdfeeder made out of recycled plastic and it seems like the squirrels enjoy eating this plastic. UGH. My hubby cooked over a fire when we went camping, he always made yummy food. Take care, enjoy your day!
Oh those poor squirrels! Glad you hubby is the chef of outdoor cooking.
DeleteI am a bit obsessed about recycling. I clean everything before I put it in the bin. I hate using plastic, and am relieved to find products that are made of recycled plastics. Our plastic footprint is truly a nightmare for our planet.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, and when I have friends who live "closer to the land" they produce much of their own food. I live in an apartment and depend upon purchasing my food...but can go to a tailgate market and buy fresh local produce...and bring my own cotton bags. I honestly don't recycle much, except paperboard boxes, and a few bottles.
DeleteI married a man who lived in the forest & mountains and we heated our homes with wood stoves. In general we'd lose our electrical power several times a year and I learned how to make all sorts of things on a wood stove. My grandmother's old cast iron Dutch oven came in really handy during those times. But the most important thing I learned to make on the wood stoves during those powerless mornings was coffee in a percolator pot when "Mr. Coffee" wasn't working! :)
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I remember camping and fixing coffee on the fire...but usually just boiled water and poured it over the grounds in a paper filter in a cone over my cup. My children were fine with juice, not always cold.
DeleteThe campfire looks appealing.
ReplyDeleteI do miss sitting around a fire at night. I actually had a fireplace in a mobile home in Florida for a few years...pretty silly because it seldom was cold enough to use it.
DeleteWe've cut back on plastic. If it comes in a plastic container or tray, we don't buy it. We got used to it so I don't miss those milk jugs or meat and fruit trays. We have lots of plastic here and it's not good. Plastic fruit trays are now being replaced by cardboard.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed some places are doing that...but not all the stores. It still seems to depend upon how far things are traveling to get to market. I try to buy local, which usually helps. Glad to hear you don't buy many plastic wrapped things!
DeleteThe age of the Earth is measured in hundreds of thousands of years, and this is the beginning of the new Plasticene Age. Future archeologists will date layers of rock by the amount of plastic. Recently I visited our county landfill and was horrified at the acres of trash and junk thrown away every day. Not just plastic but metals, wood, and many items that could be repurposed. Too sad to describe.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a good sense of perspective on our consumer society...just see what is thrown away! Very sad.
DeleteIsn't it annoying that most organic foods are now wrapped in plastic? I can find alternatives in Whole Foods but that store is an hour's drive, more if there's traffic. And of course I'd be using extra petroleum just to save petroleum, so that's not really a victory.
ReplyDeleteNot only using more gas to get there, but the cost at Whole Foods is higher than those plastic containers of organic produce!
DeleteGreat post, as is your previous one. Made me think of the census in which the occupation of so many women is given as housewife, or homemaker, or at home or -- worst of all -- none. Yet dealing with those old stoves, amidst so many other tasks, was a full-time job in itself!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, when my sister lived off the grid and cooked on a wood burning stove (her "back to the land" period) she learned which woods would be best to use for baking or boiling water.
DeleteLuckily, camping styles changed a lot by the time I started doing it in the 1970s.
ReplyDeleteI agree. How nice to go camping and not have any conveniences of home. Actually I sometimes would bring home dishes to throw in the dishwasher. And I did get tired of still being the chief cook and bottle washer when out in the woods. It was nice for a while, but I was glad to have an adult son around to cook at least one meal if we were gone for a week.
DeleteA very interesting and original interpretation of this week’s prompt, linking the past with our current environmental concerns.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely we are in an age of convenience and profit over concern for the planet.
ReplyDelete