bigburly912
Flashlight Enthusiast
BTW. I never use a straw and lid either, not for any environmental reason I just don't feel like I need a lid and straw on my drink unless I'm driving.
Fast Food Cup Lids n Straws
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tech25
Flashlight Enthusiast
Good point, it can be wasteful. The reason that I use a straw and a lid is the tables in tend to be small and usually rocks at the slightest movement. I just don't want anything to spill on me.
I work around swamps at times. As an erosion and sediment control monitor part of my job is to check out places storm water ends up.
Millions and millions of cups and plastic bottles litter the place. Yet out of say, 100 cups you see a straw. Lids and straws break down quickly in sunlight. It always boggles my mind how much stuff people just toss out the window instead of putting the stuff in a receptacle.
I was green long before green was cool. So it causes me to shake my head at some of the things "green" people want to ban. And how much waste many of those same people generate. My tree hugger sister and her family probably generate ten times the waste of most people I know.
For me, in a restaraunt a straw is for the kids. The Mrs and I collect straws they issue at restaraunts in paper wrappers. You'd be surprised the things you can make out of straws. My wife makes hats, purses and other articles from plastic bags. She makes jewelry from drink cans and tabs. Wind chimes from used glass bottles and flowery door wreaths and wind spinners from plastic bottles.
Heck we have neighbors bring us leftover stuff with requests for her crafts made by them.
Nobody has to do it all, but if everybody does a little a whole lot gets done.
Millions and millions of cups and plastic bottles litter the place. Yet out of say, 100 cups you see a straw. Lids and straws break down quickly in sunlight. It always boggles my mind how much stuff people just toss out the window instead of putting the stuff in a receptacle.
I was green long before green was cool. So it causes me to shake my head at some of the things "green" people want to ban. And how much waste many of those same people generate. My tree hugger sister and her family probably generate ten times the waste of most people I know.
For me, in a restaraunt a straw is for the kids. The Mrs and I collect straws they issue at restaraunts in paper wrappers. You'd be surprised the things you can make out of straws. My wife makes hats, purses and other articles from plastic bags. She makes jewelry from drink cans and tabs. Wind chimes from used glass bottles and flowery door wreaths and wind spinners from plastic bottles.
Heck we have neighbors bring us leftover stuff with requests for her crafts made by them.
Nobody has to do it all, but if everybody does a little a whole lot gets done.
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I agree that trash in waterways and generally littered about outside is one of the more egregious ways refuse affects us. But even trash properly disposed of has to go somewhere. Giant mountains of trash, landfills all over the place. We have one about 20 minutes from where I live. What an eyesore, and nosesore. All those single use products still have to be manufactured, shipped, used for a few minutes or hours, then disposed of and shipped again to a massive garbage heap somewhere. I'm far from perfect: there are still products and foods I use that come in small containers designed to be individually served or used and tossed. But I try to find bulk alternatives where I can, recycle all I can, use the reusable shopping bags, a metal water bottle instead of plastic bottles, reusuable food storage containers, use rechargeable batteries, etc. to limit the amount of waste I reasonably can without coming off as a wacko. And I don't try to control how other people live, only do what I can to set a good example.
I really like that line bykfixer, "Nobody has to do it all, but if everybody does a little a whole lot gets done." Some people claim those little changes don't matter, but across a whole nation or world, that's hundreds of millions of changes and that does matter. 🙂🙂
I really like that line bykfixer, "Nobody has to do it all, but if everybody does a little a whole lot gets done." Some people claim those little changes don't matter, but across a whole nation or world, that's hundreds of millions of changes and that does matter. 🙂🙂
With the advent of the BiC lighter, Americans saw big changes in habits as convenience became more and more prevailant. My mom (rip) used to say "this whole nation is turning into a throw away society".… That was likely around, 1975?
Ok, how about some grocery bag history?
Seems at one point folks took their own cloth sack to the market to obtain their supply of food goods. We call them groceries now because so many things are prepared in one fashion or another. Fresh milk, eggs, cheese etc. But back then most items were in a raw state or bagged in their own container like sugar. That wasn't very sterile so as things became more industrialized and more people flocked to cities, germs from grocery sacks made lots of people ill. Society insisted on better.
Enter the paper bag. Oh it was heaven at first. "Please double bag the milk this time grocery boy". Every cool kid in America had customized book covers for their school books made of grocery bag paper. There were all kinds of uses for them. But "save the trees" meant thin little plastic bags replaced the ever popular paper bag. At first it sucked.
Only 1/3 capacity those little bags tore easily and were a pain to get rid of. Big ball of poofy plastic packed your kitchen trash can where the paper bags were neatly folded and stored for use as something else later. But like self service gas pumps, we got used to plastic bags. Heck in my home they line trash cans, wrap Christmas ornaments upon putting them away, or use as portable luggage.
Well then we heard "save the fish" and slowly communities rallied against plastic grocery bags, some even banning them in local stores. Many of those folks have gone to using cloth sacks for their organically grown staples and have begun to learn the hard way that……
Cloth bags carry germs so now in those comunities they cry out for…… wait for it……
Paper grocery bags. But stores charge a nickel apiece for smaller, thinner paper bags so frustrated consumers are overheard saying "ya know those plastic bags were ok afterall"....
Shown here is a project Mrs Fixer is making for a friend.
A change purse made of plastic grocery bags. She calls it "plarn" where she folds the bags into a strip, cuts the strip into smaller segments, unfolds the smaller segments and ties those end to end and creates a ball of plarn. The plarn is croche'd into items such as celphone covers, flashlight holsters, fanypacks, ladies pocket books or as you see to the right, BiC lighter cases……
Here's a door wreath made of worn out t-shirt materials.
We do our part to reduce what goes in trash cans and recycle buckets. Now part of my thinking is that the large, heavy truck drives down my street made of thin asphalt every week all slamming on breaks at each house and wearing out the pavement structure. As the truck gets loaded it gets heavier too. So each week we do a little to preserve the pavement. Also neighbors cluster cans and bins together so the trucks stop less times, workers get more time riding on the back in a summer breeze and less fuel is used from accelarating house to house. We all try to do a little.
Yard waste is composted into fertilizer, house down spouts water flower beds instead of running to the street and ends up being dumped into streams in large quantities, which in turns scours away stream banks. Things like that mean we still live with modern day conveniences but leave a little less impact on the planet later. While posh neighborhoods have some corparations trucks spraying salt laiden liquids on their super lawns we sprinkle 50/50 mixtures of leaves and grass clippings that mother nature turns into topsoil and actually does better at feeding the roots and providing weedless lawns. Nutrients don't end up in ponds creating algae layers so the fish get bigger for ending up on somebodies dinner plate later……
Yup. A little here, a little there.
Ok, how about some grocery bag history?
Seems at one point folks took their own cloth sack to the market to obtain their supply of food goods. We call them groceries now because so many things are prepared in one fashion or another. Fresh milk, eggs, cheese etc. But back then most items were in a raw state or bagged in their own container like sugar. That wasn't very sterile so as things became more industrialized and more people flocked to cities, germs from grocery sacks made lots of people ill. Society insisted on better.
Enter the paper bag. Oh it was heaven at first. "Please double bag the milk this time grocery boy". Every cool kid in America had customized book covers for their school books made of grocery bag paper. There were all kinds of uses for them. But "save the trees" meant thin little plastic bags replaced the ever popular paper bag. At first it sucked.
Only 1/3 capacity those little bags tore easily and were a pain to get rid of. Big ball of poofy plastic packed your kitchen trash can where the paper bags were neatly folded and stored for use as something else later. But like self service gas pumps, we got used to plastic bags. Heck in my home they line trash cans, wrap Christmas ornaments upon putting them away, or use as portable luggage.
Well then we heard "save the fish" and slowly communities rallied against plastic grocery bags, some even banning them in local stores. Many of those folks have gone to using cloth sacks for their organically grown staples and have begun to learn the hard way that……
Cloth bags carry germs so now in those comunities they cry out for…… wait for it……
Paper grocery bags. But stores charge a nickel apiece for smaller, thinner paper bags so frustrated consumers are overheard saying "ya know those plastic bags were ok afterall"....
Shown here is a project Mrs Fixer is making for a friend.
A change purse made of plastic grocery bags. She calls it "plarn" where she folds the bags into a strip, cuts the strip into smaller segments, unfolds the smaller segments and ties those end to end and creates a ball of plarn. The plarn is croche'd into items such as celphone covers, flashlight holsters, fanypacks, ladies pocket books or as you see to the right, BiC lighter cases……
Here's a door wreath made of worn out t-shirt materials.
We do our part to reduce what goes in trash cans and recycle buckets. Now part of my thinking is that the large, heavy truck drives down my street made of thin asphalt every week all slamming on breaks at each house and wearing out the pavement structure. As the truck gets loaded it gets heavier too. So each week we do a little to preserve the pavement. Also neighbors cluster cans and bins together so the trucks stop less times, workers get more time riding on the back in a summer breeze and less fuel is used from accelarating house to house. We all try to do a little.
Yard waste is composted into fertilizer, house down spouts water flower beds instead of running to the street and ends up being dumped into streams in large quantities, which in turns scours away stream banks. Things like that mean we still live with modern day conveniences but leave a little less impact on the planet later. While posh neighborhoods have some corparations trucks spraying salt laiden liquids on their super lawns we sprinkle 50/50 mixtures of leaves and grass clippings that mother nature turns into topsoil and actually does better at feeding the roots and providing weedless lawns. Nutrients don't end up in ponds creating algae layers so the fish get bigger for ending up on somebodies dinner plate later……
Yup. A little here, a little there.
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To answer the original question by nbp, no I do not automatically place a lid and straw on a beverage I'm drinking in the restaraunt. Now if I end up leaving with said cup of beverage then I'll stop by the condiment stand and grab them. And also a few napkins to stash in the glove box for use later.
Most people just blindly go about life doing what they see others doing without any rhyme or reason. In my work for example, when closing a lane of a dual lane road we place warning signs beginning a mile before the work zone. Road work ahead, then right lane closed a head, then be aware of one lane up ahead, then "hey, last warning move over, then a flashing arrow pointing to the left. Ok so a semi knocks over a couple of cones in the taper of cones leaving a big gap. Suddenly you look up and see not one or two but 35 cars all driving down the lane that is closed. Meanwhile nobody is in the lane that is open. The lead car suddenly notices trucks and people are blocking the lane that the signs and arrow said would be closed and panic sets in. Suddenly it's like someone yelled "fire" in a movie theatre. Next thing you know both lanes are blocked due to panic stricken motorists crashing into each other.
Set back and observe strangers for a few minutes. You'll see the darndest patterns of behavior that proves most have no idea what to do in ordinary life so they blindly take cues from others without even realizing it……like adding a lid and straw to their beverage at fast food joints.
Most people just blindly go about life doing what they see others doing without any rhyme or reason. In my work for example, when closing a lane of a dual lane road we place warning signs beginning a mile before the work zone. Road work ahead, then right lane closed a head, then be aware of one lane up ahead, then "hey, last warning move over, then a flashing arrow pointing to the left. Ok so a semi knocks over a couple of cones in the taper of cones leaving a big gap. Suddenly you look up and see not one or two but 35 cars all driving down the lane that is closed. Meanwhile nobody is in the lane that is open. The lead car suddenly notices trucks and people are blocking the lane that the signs and arrow said would be closed and panic sets in. Suddenly it's like someone yelled "fire" in a movie theatre. Next thing you know both lanes are blocked due to panic stricken motorists crashing into each other.
Set back and observe strangers for a few minutes. You'll see the darndest patterns of behavior that proves most have no idea what to do in ordinary life so they blindly take cues from others without even realizing it……like adding a lid and straw to their beverage at fast food joints.
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