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Sack your bags

I've decided to accept IRIS Director Dawn Bazely's challenge to blog about creatively reducing, reusing and diverting everyday household waste (see post "Hey, get me out of here, I don't want to go to landfill!").

The first challenge item she has thrown at me is a milk bag. Not being much of a milk drinker, milk bags do not find their way into my life very often. When I do buy milk, though, I purchase the less sustainably packaged wax cartons of lactose free milk.

For milk lovers and bag avoiders, there is hope. Local dairies and dairy cooperatives like Harmony Organic have reintroduced the classic milk bottle, in addition to also offering carton and bag packaging options. Their website states: "All our products are available in returnable glass bottles* which leaves the milk tasting clean and 'fresh from the farm'. Each bottle is expected to make 15-20 trips before being recycled. In an effort to bypass the use of chlorine as a sanitizing agent, we use hydrogen peroxide in our cleaning processes." While I don't drink much milk, I do eat yogurt every morning for breakfast. Similarly packaged in a reusable glass bottle, I buy delicious, creamy, full-fat, organic yogurt from Pinehedge Farms, located in St-Eugène, Ontario.

I case you're wondering, St-Eugène is at the Ontario border with Quebec, between Ottawa and Montreal, and over 500 km away from my home in downtown Toronto. While I love the idea of reusable packaging, I wonder if shipping a relatively heavy glass jar 500 km each way is environmentally better than shipping a relatively light plastic container.  Would I not be better off consuming the equally delicious Saugeen Country Dairy organic yogurt, which is packaged in plastic and hails from Markdale, Ontario, only 150 km away? If this is the case, surely it would also be better to purchase milk in light weight bags (ideally from a nearby dairy) rather than in glass bottles. It seems we are back to generating plastic milk bags.

There are other, more challenging alternatives.  For example, you could forgo milk entirely, taking on a vegan (absolutely no animal products) or paleolithic (dairy-free with only certain plants and animal products) diets. You could live close enough to a dairy farm, so as to not worry about shipping heavy glass bottles long distances. Or you could lobby the government to allow urban backyard bovine, though I doubt a cow would be very happy living in a 20 square meter backyard.

This question is like so many other "what is more sustainable" scenarios, which are highly complex and -- if you're not careful -- might make you think, it's all bad so why bother? In those cases, often a simple act is a good place to start. So, start by reusing all your milk bags (including the clear ones that are impressively durable). Stop accepting plastic bags from retailers and stop buying them as much as possible. While you're at it, stop buying food storage bags and use these instead. In fact, in many cases they could even replace plastic cling wrap if coupled with a rubber band or twist tie. The goal should not be to make your life guilt-ridden or inordinately complicated. Rather, we should all try to use less and use thoughtfully.

What do you think, Dawn? Agree? Disagree?

Ready for  a new challenge? My challenge to you, Dawn, is what should we do about these pesky items -- cigarette butts?

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Good luck,

Meagan

http://www.pinehedge.com/default.htm

Hey, get me out of here, I don’t want to go to landfill!

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.)


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