Self the loser is one of those losers who, unlike many others, pays attention to the number at the bottom of plastic containers, to see how recyclable they are. For those knowledgeable about such things, you know that the real prizes are # 1 and # 2 plastic, in terms of recyclability. At events where I've poured refreshment into plastic cups, I've noted to patrons whether or not the plastic cups can be put into the recycling, which must make those patrons think in the back of their heads "what a loser/dork".
However, in light of this article from this week in The Guardian on how much plastic actually gets incinerated or landfilled, as opposed to actually recycled, 3CM may indeed be more of a loser than usual. Note this bit especially:
"The issue is with a popular class of plastics that people have traditionally been told to put into their recycling bins – a hodgepodge of items such as clamshell-style food packaging, black plastic trays, take-out containers and cold drink cups, which the industry dubs 'mixed plastic'. It has become clear that there are virtually no domestic manufacturers that want to buy this waste in order to turn it into something else.
“Take Los Angeles county, the most populous in America. The Guardian has learned that recycling facilities are separating 'mixed plastics; from those plastics which still retain value – such as water bottles, laundry detergent bottles and milk jugs – and, contrary to what customers expect, sending them directly to a landfill or incinerator."
The type of plastic that makes up water bottles, laundry detergent bottles, and milk jugs tends to be guess which numbers. Yup, # 1 and # 2. Have a look at the bottom number of any of those containers the next time you use them, or are at the supermarket.
To show what a loser 3CM is, I even wash out milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles before putting them in the recycling container in the back alley. It would be correct to point out that this involves use (waste?) of another precious environmental resource, namely water, to wash out those containers, only to put them out to nominal recycling, never to be used at home again. (Water bottles, of course, can be put in the recycling container directly.) However, I use water strategically in cleaning out those bottles, namely when:
* I'm doing the dishes and initially running the hot water tap, because that water starts as cold before it warms up, So I use that initially cold water to wash out the milk jug, or fruit juice bottle(s) (which also tend to be # 1 and # 2 plastic).
* Before taking a shower (if I don't have enough dishes to wash to warm up the water beforehand), I can load up an empty laundry detergent bottle with cold water as it warms up, because there's always some residual laundry detergent in the laundry detergent bottle after one has used the last of it. The detergent foams up, to be sure. But I save that water with the last of the detergent for the next laundry wash, and then add that water into the detergent holder. Once the last of the detergent has been washed out, and used in the washer, then the container goes to recycling.
If this sounds overly OCD or anal-retentive (if not outright loser), that’s correct: it is. But it's better than carelessness, isn't it? There's too much of that, if well-intentioned, among people who treat all plastic the same, whatever the number, and toss it all into recycling, or in the trash and don't even try to recycle. OTOH, given that a lot of plastic containers at work do contain food, maybe it's best to toss them, rather than contaminate the recycling stream with food.
The Guardian notes, as is generally understood, that the actions of China, starting in 2017, to stop buying our excess plastic is at the heart of the collapse of the US plastics recycling market. Note the year. We'll sadly never know if the same thing would have happened if HRC were in the White House. It's a possibility to wonder that China may have done this in partial retaliation against Traitor Drumpf and his trade war rhetoric, and that none of this madness, or at least considerably less of it, would have happened with a President HRC. But then all the destructive acts of Traitor Drumpf (including installing climate disruption denier William Happer in the corridors of power) are on the hands of those who enabled him to commit his epic douchebaggery in spite of claiming to oppose him, namely B-o-b'ers and purity trolls, who are ready to do it all again next year if their favorite candidate isn't the Democratic POTUS nominee. The place for purity is not in the general election, but actually in recycling, because that involves physical purity of the materials intended for recycling. Food contamination in recyclables can cause whole batches of recyclables to be rejected. Thus no used and greased up pizza boxes in recycling, please.
So even with the knowledge that being conscientious about plastics and recycling may be so much wasted effort, self the loser will continue to wash out the # 1 and # 2 high quality plastic, in his overly conscientious way, because not enough other people are, it seems. Someone has to do it. With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week....