Eco-Friendly

I went on vacation to Canada a few weeks ago with my boyfriend’s family. His parents are retired and recently bought a house there to spend their summers, so we got a little bit more of a residential experience than one might normally get on a trip abroad.

His parents shared little tidbits about acclimating to life in Canada, including the robust waste sorting system they set up at the house to comply with the country’s recycling program. We even got to ride along with my boyfriend’s dad when he took the trash and recycling into town to drop it off at the solid waste transfer station. It was basically Christmas for a recycling nerd like me.

The first thing that struck me was that trash and recycling were accepted at the same station. It also struck me that everyone had to drive their waste to this station, rather than it being picked up from their homes. However, we were in a pretty rural part of Canada, so this probably isn’t true in more populated areas.

In addition to accepting typical household recyclables, the facility had sections for all kinds of specialty items I wouldn’t know how to recycle in the U.S.: tires, propane tanks, cooking oil, and even a “reuse” area where you can drop off large items for a $2 fee and anyone else can take them home for free.

The standard recycling area was similarly separated, with different dumpsters for paper, cardboard, plastic & cans, and glass.

The recycling area was equipped with several large, detailed signs specifically describing what can and can’t be recycled. I would love to see more informative signs like these at recycling stations in the U.S.

The only piece missing from the recycling station was a food waste compost receptacle (they accepted yard waste for composting but not food scraps). Also, they had a bin/baler for recycling plastic bags, but it was out of service when we visited.

It’s free to drop off recycling at the transfer station, but each bag of trash costs $2, which you pay for by purchasing red trash stickers. There was only one small trash dumpster at the entire facility, and it wasn’t even close to full. Residents are limited to dropping off a maximum of 6 trash bags per visit.

One question I wish I had asked is how they enforce correct recycling and discourage contamination. My concern with promoting a pay-for-trash model in the U.S. is that it could incentivize people to put their trash in the recycling dumpsters so they don’t have to pay for it. There was one staff member at the recycling station, but she was in a little vestibule, and I didn’t notice anyone actively monitoring the bins for contamination. Maybe because the bins were segregated by material type it’s easier for their processing facilities to pull out contamination when it does occur.

The transfer station accepts hazardous waste once a week, unlike many parts of the U.S. where “tox drop” days happen only a few times a year. They even have a corner of the parking lot with free mulch for anyone to take (“please limit yourself to 2-3 pails,” the sign requests politely).

I pretty much fell in love with the solid waste transfer station. However, recycling was prevalent everywhere we went. There were readily available recycling bins around downtown and in shopping centers. This beauty greeted us outside a Walmart right after we crossed the border.

Again with the helpful lists of accepted materials! Canada knows how to do recycling education.

I loved getting an up-close look at how our neighbors to the north do recycling. While I’m intrigued by the idea of a pay-for-trash system, what I’d really love the U.S. to adopt from this example is more descriptive educational signs on recycling bins. Many people are confused about what to recycle, to the extent that China has stopped importing all plastic recyclables from the U.S. because they were too contaminated with garbage. This confusion affects many people I know who are trying to recycle correctly. Other people who don’t have a lot of mental energy to dedicate to recycling are likely even more befuddled.

What does your town’s recycling system look like? Is there anything from the Canadian system you wish your facility had?

A few months ago I posted about the issue of synthetic microfibers being released from our laundry into waterways, where they accumulate and cause environmental problems. While re-engineering modern fabrics is the best long-term solution to this problem, as a proponent of secondhand clothing and making items last as long as possible, I wanted to do something to mitigate the pollution caused by my existing wardrobe.

Enter the Guppyfriend washing bag. The bag, created by German nonprofit organization STOP! MICRO WASTE, claims to contain microfibers released during washing so you can dispose of them in the trash rather than through the pipes. I purchased my bag through Patagonia, who sells them at cost as part of their microfiber pollution campaign.

Using the Guppyfriend is pretty straightforward. First, I sorted my clothing made of synthetic fabric and placed it in the bag. I sorted out my polyester, rayon and acrylic garments. For blended fabrics, I put it in the bag if the percentage of synthetic fibers was more than 40 percent.

One complaint I have about the Guppyfriend is that it doesn’t come with a list of synthetic fibers, leaving it up to the user to determine which fibers to put in the bag. This caused confusion for me about what to do with modal fabric, and about whether spandex sheds microfibers or not.

The Guppyfriend instructions say not to fill the bag more than half full so clothing can move around in the wash. The bag is pretty large, so I’ve been able to fit all of my synthetic garments from each load into the bag without exceeding the general halfway point. I estimate that I can get about 10 garments into the bag per load, give or take a few depending on their bulkiness.

Once the bag is full, I put it in the washing machine with the rest of the load and washed as usual. After the wash cycle, it was clear that the bag had indeed captured some microfibers:

The microfibers are easiest to see after washing darks; I can’t really see them after washing lights. I also realized that some of the fibers visible on the bag are actually on the outside—they’re fibers released by the natural textiles that weren’t in the bag. But there are still visible fibers inside the bag as well. In terms of laundry effectiveness, my clothes seem to have gotten just as clean inside the bag as they did outside of it.

I usually wash two loads right in a row, and I’ve found no problems with loading garments into the bag once it’s already wet. When I’m all done, I hang the bag to dry for next time.

One thing I haven’t totally figured out yet is how to remove the microfibers from the bag. According to the Guppyfriend FAQs, the microfibers will eventually collect in the seams and corners of the bag, where they are easier to remove. I’ve used the bag five or six times and haven’t seen much accumulation around the edges yet. Apparently this is an observation a lot of users have had, because there’s an FAQ response for this as well, pointing out that the fibers are indeed microfibers and some are transparent, making them hard to see. The bag is also designed to cushion the mechanical forces of the washing process, thereby reducing the amount of fibers shed by garments in the first place.

The bag itself is made of polyamide, which the Guppyfriend website says is fully recyclable. It requests that users mail back their bags at the end of their useful life so they can be recycled into new bags.

A second complaint I have about the Guppyfriend is that even though its material construction is addressed in great detail, there’s no information on the website and minimal information on the product packaging about how and where the bags are produced. The back of the packaging simply states: “Product of Switzerland. Sewn in Portugal.” I’ve found with moderate consistency that eco-friendly products often neglect to discuss the social aspect of their production, which to me is surprising and disappointing, since in my mind environmental and social issues go hand-in-hand.

Overall, I think the Guppyfriend is a valid interim solution for stemming the tide of microfiber pollution, and I plan to continue using mine. In addition to using the Guppyfriend, STOP! MICRO WASTE recommends the following other ways to mitigate microfiber pollution, most of which I was already doing:

• Wash in cold water
• Use liquid detergent as opposed to powder
• Wash less often
• Purchase clothing made of natural fibers

Have you tried the Guppyfriend, or any other methods of reducing microfiber pollution? How has your experience been?

I recently joined the Facebook group Zero Waste Indy, a forum for sustainability-minded Indianapolis residents to share their ideas and strategies for reducing their personal waste. It’s been really interesting to see everyone’s solutions, and last week fellow group member and blogger Polly Barks posted about an initiative I hadn’t heard of before: Plastic Free July.

Plastic Free July is a month-long campaign being promoted by different sustainability organizations worldwide. The official Plastic Free July website is run by Earth Carers of Western Australia, and the challenge is also promoted by the Story of Stuff. The goal of Plastic Free July is to challenge yourself to refuse single-use plastic in your daily life.

Packaging is a major source of plastic waste, and as I started Plastic Free July, I realized it’s harder to totally avoid than I thought. I went to the farmers’ market on Saturday and got produce in my reusable bags as I’ve done for years, but then after I bought a loaf of bread, I was halfway home before it occurred to me that the bread was in a single-use plastic bag.

Obviously, packaging is only one facet of a product’s overall environmental footprint. I’m on the fence about how to handle bread, because there are other bakeries that sell their bread in paper bags, but I’ve found that those loaves of bread get stale more quickly. I don’t want to end up wasting food in the name of reducing packaging. One solution could be to buy a loaf in a paper bag and transfer it to a heavier-duty reusable plastic bag when I get home to help it stay fresh. Ultimately if I wanted the most sustainable, packaging-free bread, it would probably be best to bake it at home. I’m not that much of a Betty Crocker yet, but maybe one day!

Despite the fact that packaging should be considered alongside the other environmental factors of a product, Plastic Free July is still a worthwhile campaign to bring awareness to the myriad pieces of plastic we use unthinkingly throughout the day, which add up to a significant plastic waste problem. A recent article in the Guardian provides an in-depth look at the world’s plastic waste crisis. Growth in the use of disposable plastic has far outpaced the capacity of recycling programs to keep up, so curbing our use of plastic is just as necessary as recycling what we do use.

One thing I would like to do intentionally starting this month is to more actively refuse plastic straws at restaurants. Right now if the server hands them out, I leave mine on the table, but I don’t know if it gets picked up to be used by someone else or thrown away. When I order my drink I’d like to get in the habit of saying “No straw, please.” Other ideas I may try include carrying a fork in my purse to use when only plastic cutlery is available, and investigating buying olive oil in bulk to avoid the use of a plastic bottle.

What plastic do you notice yourself using on a regular basis? What can you cut out of your routine during Plastic Free July? Share your answers in the comments, and use hashtags #plasticfreejuly and #plasticfreeindy to share your progress on social media all month long.