{"id":372,"date":"2009-01-07T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2009-01-07T09:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html"},"modified":"2009-01-07T09:00:27","modified_gmt":"2009-01-07T09:00:27","slug":"practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html","title":{"rendered":"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Plastic is made to be very durable. While physical structure of plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.algalita.org\/AlgalitaFAQs.htm#photos\"> it is unclear when, if ever, that plastic biodegrades<\/a> &#8211; which basically is another way of saying that plastic may last forever.\u00a0 <strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"color:#008000\"><strong>Now keeping that in mind, I went about my day taking the time to notice when I came into contact with plastic.<\/strong> <\/span><br \/>\nThis is a quick list of what I noticed was contained in plastic in my apartment: milk, yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream, syrup, honey, canola oil, peanut butter, most of my spices, dishwashing liquid, floor cleaner, multi-vitamins,  <span>valerian <\/span>root pills, contact solution, shampoo, tylenol, body lotion, hydrogen peroxide, birth control pills, plastic cup from a fast food place that I use to water my plants, etc&#8230;<br \/>\nPondering this, it upset me to know that a lot of these plastic containers hold things that I use on a regular basis, that I buy over and over and over again. Sure, some of it get recycled, but the rest of it can&#8217;t be (see extra credit below). This mean after I throw it away, it continues on existing for thousands of years. Multiplied by the millions of people who are doing the same thing I am.\u00a0 It hurts my head.<br \/>\n<strong><span style=\"color:#008000\">Extra credit: I turned over all my plastic to see what kind of I had. <\/span><\/strong><br \/>\nTaking the time to turn over the containers of plastic in my home, I was surprised by which ones are  <span>recyclable <\/span> (my contact solution container) and which ones were not (my oregano spice container). Plastics are usually on the bottom of the container with <a href=\"http:\/\/earth911.com\/plastic\/the-seven-types-of-plastic\/\">a resin identification code<\/a>.<br \/>\nSome plastic can be recycled &#8211; these are the ones marked with the number 1 (PETE) or the number 2 (HDPE).\u00a0 Only a few places also take other types of plastic such as number 5 (PP). More recently, there has been <a href=\"http:\/\/onecity.wordpress.com\/2008\/12\/17\/back-to-the-sack-success\/\">efforts to recycle plastic bags<\/a> which have a resin ID code of 4 (LDPE) .<br \/>\nHowever, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coopamerica.org\/pubs\/caq\/articles\/Fall2007\/recyclingFAQ.cfm\">Green America posts<\/a> some depressing news about recycling plastics:<br \/>\n<em>&#8220;No plastics are truly recyclable back into the same type of container they were before, due to the chemical properties of plastics. Plastics #1 and some #2 are \u201cdowncyclable\u201d into second-order products, like plastic \u201clumber\u201d for picnic tables and decks. With the exception of a few <a href=\"http:\/\/www.recycline.com\/gimme5\/\">model programs like that of Stonyfield Farms and Recycline<\/a>\u2014which turns used #5 yogurt cups into Recycline toothbrushes and razors\u2014there is almost no domestic market for plastics #3\u20137.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>\nWith this new awareness, I think my next steps are going to be trying to reduce how much I buy that comes in plastic containers, starting with the ones I know I can&#8217;t recycle. I cannot imagine it is going to be easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plastic is made to be very durable. While physical structure of plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, it is unclear when, if ever, that plastic biodegrades &#8211; which basically is another way of saying that plastic may last forever.\u00a0 Now keeping that in mind, I went about my day taking the time to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":339,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Plastic is made to be very durable. While physical structure of plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, it is unclear when, if ever, that plastic biodegrades &#8211; which basically is another way of saying that plastic may last forever.\u00a0 Now keeping that in mind, I went about my day taking the time to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-07T09:00:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"omphalina\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics - One City","og_description":"Plastic is made to be very durable. While physical structure of plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, it is unclear when, if ever, that plastic biodegrades &#8211; which basically is another way of saying that plastic may last forever.\u00a0 Now keeping that in mind, I went about my day taking the time to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2009-01-07T09:00:27+00:00","author":"omphalina","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html","name":"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-07T09:00:27+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-07T09:00:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/8474b0b6fe4fe80c30a33e656e000811"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/practicing-awareness-minding-my-plastics.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Practicing awareness: Minding my plastics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/8474b0b6fe4fe80c30a33e656e000811","name":"omphalina","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"omphalina"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/omphalina"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/339"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}