By Mary Casper •
February 3, 2009
Too many old yogurt containers concealing ancient leftovers in your refrigerator? Seems that we all have a stack of them cluttering the cabinets in our kitchen–the price we pay for enjoying yogurt, sour cream or anything that comes sold in those shiny Number 5 plastic containers and also having a conscience.
Luckily Preserve, makers of 100% recycled personal care products, has started a new program to recycle the pesky plastics even when your municipality does not. They’ve partnered up with organic dairy producers, Stonyfield Farm and Organic Valley, to turn used plastic dairy containers into toothbrush handles. Consumers can return the plastic containers, along with used Brita water filters, into bins at any of the participating Whole Foods markets in the Midwest, Northeast and Northern California.
By Joe Mohr •
March 1, 2008
ECO2 Plastics makes me want to dance–although this was after it made me want to sob. I’ll get to the latter later. The former is why I’ve titled this post “Environmental Boogaloo”. Boogaloo (bugalu) is a type of Latin dance and music and, after speaking with the good folks at ECO2 Plastics, I want to dance!
Why I Wanted to Sob
In getting info for this article I found out what ECO2 CEO Rod Rougelot calls “recycling’s dirty little secret.” During the process of recycling plastic, tons of water is wasted during cleaning. This water is not your ordinary run-of-the-watermill water, however. A variety of harmful acids and detergents are added to the water to clean the contaminants, glue, and labels off the plastic. Deflocculants are then added to pull the solids out of the wastewater. Finally, (and this is a very general explanation of the process) the wastewater is treated to balance the pH level of the water. This is done through the use of more chemicals. End result: one, sanitized plastic ready to be recycled; two, a cocktail of harmful, detergents, chemicals, acids, bases, deflocculants, and contaminants headed down the drain and back into our fresh water supply (approximately 40 million gallons per year to be–approximately–exact). When I verbalized my feelings of being hoodwinked, Rougelot quickly pointed out that, although a dirty, wasteful process, it is still better than creating plastic from scratch. Thanks for the verbal tissue Rod. Goodbye, for now, tears!
