Published June 7, 2010
by dbazely
Recently, there have been several changes at IRIS. Annette Dubreuil is staying on as a part-time project co-ordinator, and is giving up her duties as IRIS co-ordinator. She will be putting her sustainable business model for aboriginal communities into action. She has been working on this project for the past 2-3 years, voluntarily, and is going to pursue her dream of making it happen. I have asked her to keep checking in with us and to let us know how it's going.
We welcome, as part-time summer IRIS co-ordinator, Meagan Heath. Meagan is finishing her MES in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. She is an expert on garbage, was one of the organizers of this year's York U garbage survey, and works part-time for CSBO - Campus Services and Business Operations. She is a woman of many talents including being tri-lingual, and she is passionate about reducing waste. If you read my blogs, you will know, that I, too, am passionate about reducing, reusing and recycling.
Meagan is a very good sport, and I have challenged her, this summer to go head to head with me on coming up with ways of getting rid of the annoying items that we keep putting in our garbage, as opposed to recycling them. This could be, preventing these items from even coming into our homes, or coming up with novel ways of reusing them. Each week, we will post a photo and do a duelling blog. Readers are welcome to weigh in with other suggestions. If we can, we will add a voting button to the blogs.
Here is our first challenge - it's the common milk bag and associated milk bags. What can we do to avoid using them or to redirect them from landfill, in the case where they are not part of a blue box programme (other than having a cow in our back garden?)??
Dawn R. Bazely
(Read Meagan's response: Sack your bags.)
Posted in: Blogs | IRIS Director Blog | Waste Junkies
That’s a good question. At home i try and reuse milk bags, frozen food bags, pasta bags,…anything plastic that cant’t be recycled. Usually i reuse them only once for cleaning up after my dog but i’m sure there are many other uses.
Living in Kenya this summer i have found that plastic bags are a major environmental problem. One keen person in Nairobi has actually started a plastic bag recycling company, cleaning up plastic bags from the streets, parks ect and melting/recycling into building materials like fencing posts.
Dawn,
One crafty idea for you: lay a few plastic bags on top of each other, lay a piece of waxed paper on top of this, and then run a warm iron over top until the plastic has been melded together.
You can then use this new plastic “fabric” to make tote bags or other items.
I also had a friend who cut plastic bags into strips, and then used it like yarn to knit with.
Goodluck!
Alexis
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