My Utensil Drawer - or how bad I am at refusing single-use plastics

Okay, you all know that I really don't like single use plastics.  When I end up getting them, I always keep them.  I try to either reuse as often as possible (until they break) or recycle them.  Yesterday I spilled flour into my utensil drawer.  In cleaning it out I realized that we are really falling down on the "not taking single-use plastics" front.  I'm ashamed of myself.  Maybe I should just throw them out so the proof doesn't exist.  But I'm not the "ostrich with her head in the sand" type of person.  I'd rather do better.

Just some of the plastics in our drawer

- there were several more Dairy Queen spoons,

but they had hit the recycling before I took the picture

(you really can only re-use so many long-handled spoons)

First and foremost, plastic straws in most cases are unnecessary (unless you are an invalid - in which case, I remember paper bendy straws from my childhood.  They got a bit mushy, but they still worked).  As are the god-damned plastic lids that come on the takeout cups.  Really, folks.  You don't need the pop in the first place, and if you do, please bring your own lidded cup, order your pop without a lid and pour it in (don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect.  I'm responsible for a few lids this year, but I feel guilty about it).  The damned things are all over the place and are just horrible.  The lids, at the very least, can be recycled (how many times do you take them home and put them in the recycling?  I know some of you do) but as I will continue to say, recycling is not a good solution.  We are used to paper, glass and metal recycling, where the material is broken down and re-formed in the same chemical state.  Plastics don't work that way.  Plastics are "down-cycled" - which means that each time plastic is recycled (if they actually make it to be recycled and aren't dumped or burned in China somewhere!), it is reformed into a different (and less-recyclable) type of plastic.  Plastic can only be recycled once or twice, and then it truly is landfill or waterway fodder.  And only 3.5% of all plastics is actually recycled - you know the plastics that you drop off on your curbside or at the recylcing depot - absolutely NO guarantee that they will be recycled into anything!

Back to straws - no matter how much I hate straws, somehow I forget to ask for a drink without one.  And I end up with dozens of straws in my house that I don't want.  And I still have a package of plastic straws (that came in an un-recyclable plastic box from Ikea) from my pre-plastic-hate days.  They should last us the rest of our lives.  So, just like taking my own plastic bags to the grocery store, I simply must remember to ask for no straw!!  If you're out with me, remind me!

And the last point of today's rant - we got some really scookum plastic utensils one day - nice solid ones that look very much like they might be compostable, but they aren't.  They do have a lovely recyclable symbol on them though:

Just a note on this, however.  Unless the recyling symbol has a number and a code attached to it, it CANNOT be recycled.  Unless the type of plastic is specified, there is no way to recycle it.  This symbol it hokum!  It looks good, but it is a cheap, under-handed way of making you think it's recyclable when it's not.
You can buy lovely bamboo and metal utensil sets that you can take with you when you go out.  You can also keep those skookum, non-recyclable utensils in your purse (or computer bag, man-purse, whatever) for those times that you need them.  We're headed to DisneyWorld in a month, and I'm seriously considering having a little emergency fast food pack with all the necessary utensils, etc. to maybe help us reduce our waste a bit.  (Wonder how heavy a ketchup bottle is?)

And if you still consume water from plastic water bottles, I beg you to please buy a metal bottle and re-fill it from the tap. 

Okay.  That's my plastics rant for today --- thanks for humouring me.  If we could all try not to use single-use plastics, we really would help the world ... if only a little bit.

http://ecosalon.com/is-single-use-plastic-on-its-way-out/

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081214-OPINION-81214008

http://ward2guelph.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/single-use-plastic-water-bottles-has-their-time-has-come/