As of July 1 of this year (the year that will not be named), food scraps must be used for composting, They cannot go into household trash. This has not affected my life as I have been composting for a long time.
Also plastic bags are now banned in the State of Vermont. You can have purchases packed into paper bags, but there is a charge for those bags. I have plenty of cloth shopping bags and I have used them for the grocery store for a long time. I am quickly getting used to taking a cloth bag into other stores as well.
I am pretty sure the charge for paper bags is the law's way of encouraging people to use their own cloth bags. I have heard people complain, but I don't think it is a bad thing. Anything we can do to help the environment of our blue ball.
I have noticed that stores are using the bag expense savings for greater use of register tape though.
Yesterday I went to Staples for an ink cartridge for my printer. One item, This is the receipt:
One item!
YUP! We get those same LONG receipts from CVS here in Hawaii. We have a ban on plastic bags here in Hawaii too. Everybody has gotten used to it and it's not a problem.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a good thing. All the plastic ending up in the oceans is a big problem for marine life. I could go on but I will get off my soapbox now.
DeleteI don't know anything about composting, but here in our neighborhood in the suburbs, where the houses are close together and yards are small, I think composting all food leftovers would be a party for possums, rats, raccoons, and worst of all skunks. Maybe they would eat all of the food scraps, but the skunks around here are always having hissy fits about something and stinking up the whole block.Are the food scraps enclosed in something for composting?
ReplyDeleteI has a bin in the garden when I lived in the country. Luckily, I never say critters messing with it and we certainly had plenty around but I think it can be a problem. Now I have a little covered bin in the kitchen that I empty into a covered bucket each day. I take the bucket to a facility that processes the scraps from the county into garden compost. There are companies that will collect and deal with hauling to the facility that have popped up since the law went into effect but I am used to doing it myself and it is not that far. I should blog about composting!
DeleteCongrats Vermont. May it catch on with other states. However that receipt is obscene. They need to work on that one.
ReplyDeleteWE forgot our reusable bags this week, something we never do, and came home with at least a dozen plastic bags. But at least I had a new supply to use for kitchen trash. I was completely out. I'm not sure our store even has paper bags. I guess you have to ask for them. Plastic bags are being used (over used) in abundance here now that COVID restrictions had discouraged used of reusable bags. For a while we had to bag our own groceries if we brought our own bags. They have backed off of that now, but Tom usually bags ours anyway.
ReplyDeleteWe've had this ban, then they removed it during COVID, and it's come back. We can now use our own bags, again.
ReplyDeleteI stopped composting as the bear loved to tear it apart! I just throw stuff in my garden now.
I don't like composting because the food scraps draw roaches and ants and rats. As for plastic, what would we do without plastic trash bags? Oh my.
ReplyDeleteThree cheers for Vermont. We use our cloth totes -- now more than ever since Covid set in.
ReplyDeleteDear Olga, oh brother, eco natzis doing their usual...making things more of a hassle for everybody.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed those long paper receipts for several years and they do seem to keep getting longer. I first noticed it at CVS but Staples was doing it, too, -- seems to be spreading to other stores. Just give me the items purchased and the total and knock off all the rest -- what a pain and waste of paper.
ReplyDeletePlastic bags ceased to be used here in So Cal several years ago. They had container outside the store for recycling them long before that. Have been using cloth bags for several years. I keep them in the door pocket of my car but even then sometimes forgot to take them in the store but sometimes had to pay a dime for a paper bag. Other times I was rewarded with no charge as a long time customer or possibly for the amount of my purchase. I don't know what is happening in grocery stores now since as I haven't set foot in one since before Covid-19. Between occasional pickups, ordering shipments online, neighbor sometimes picking things up for me when they shop, my doing a few pickups also having a few freebie deliveries when special offers, all coupled with food I had on hand and in freezer I've been doing just fine. Also I've occasionally done some drive thrus at restaurants.
Good heavens, that's quite the receipt for a single item. Of course, they've likely added in a request for feedback - maybe if we all said, quit making your till receipts so long!
ReplyDeleteWe are nationally going to a ban of single use plastics sometime in the new year. I can't recall the date. Before the pandemic, I did use my own cloth bags, but now the stores won't allow us to use them. I wonder why they allow us to be clothed, if they think cloth bags would spread the virus!
I've been doing a little composting but the city doesn't pick it up. So I just use it on the front flower bed. I expect every little bit helps.
Take care, stay well!
CVS. Oh my gosh. CVS
ReplyDeleteI use cloth bags too. On a few occasions when I have forgotten to move the cloth bags back to my trunk, I'll get a plastic bag. I like to have a couple I keep in a recycled garbage bag box. My crafts can get pretty messy but if I had to forego plastic bags it wouldn't bother me either.
ReplyDelete