Jugged

Every trip to the grocery store dismays me. Single-use plastic is everywhere, in every aisle. We carry all that plastic home and try to recycle it or just throw it in the trash. 

Do we really need this wasteful junk? Landfills are full of it, creating great hills that alter the landscape. Much of it isn’t even put into a trash receptacle so it litters beaches in every remote part of the oceans. Bits and pieces of it mar the landscape. It collects on fences and litters even the gravel road that leads me home. Sea creatures ingest it or become entangled in it and die.  Whales that wash up dead on beaches are always found with stomachs full of plastic – 15 pounds of it, 80 pounds of it, 22 kilograms of it, on and on.

No wonder a grocery aisle appalls me! That’s why I’m going to war on single-use plastic. 

The first plastic I’m attacking is laundry detergent, both liquid and pod, packaged in big plastic jugs.

Is it really easier to lift that heavy jug and pour some liquid into the lid before emptying the lid’s contents into the washing machine? Or is it easier to scoop granular detergent and dump it into the machine? Does the liquid really distribute more easily in water, thus avoiding clumps of un-dissolved powder when the washer finishes its cycle? In my sixty-some years of doing laundry I’ve never had that happen, and I’ve managed to use powdered detergent packaged in cardboard boxes the whole time. 

Although I thought the plastic measuring cup in every box of it was a terrible waste, for several years I used Arm and Hammer, which I could find at only the Kroger stores in my town. Then, shockingly, even Arm & Hammer quit making powdered detergent. Now there is none.

The amount of plastic contained in these jugs is staggering. These jugs aren’t sold in just one store in my town. Every one of a dozen grocery stores has an aisle just like this one. Everybody in town is buying these jugs, not just once, but again and again. Multiply that by every city in the United States and you will have enough detergent jugs to build a jug Pike’s Peak.

There’s no good reason for consumers to accept detergent in plastic jugs.  We should demand powdered detergent packaged in cardboard boxes.  We should hold the manufacturers responsible their role in plastic devastation. Let’s see if the consumer is always right.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer

Another Obsession

I’ve become stubborn in my old age. For one thing, I am stubbornly dedicated to purchasing things made in the good old U.S.A.

Believe me, this obsession doesn't make life easy, but when so many in our county are unemployed, how can a citizen in good conscience buy new goods without knowing where they were made? Luckily, the Internet is a great help.

A few days ago Dennis and I were finishing our usual breakfast of toast and eggs and trying to add honey to the last bites of our toast. The honey, which I had transferred from its original glass bottle into a plastic squeeze bottle, was almost gone, and one couldn’t squeeze that bottle hard enough to get the honey out.

Right then and there I vowed to buy a honey pot, one with a lid that accommodates a dipper. We eat a lot of honey and I could keep a pretty honey pot on the table all the time instead of hiding an ugly plastic bottle in the cabinet.

Here’s where the Internet enters the picture. There was no need to drive from store to store looking for an American-made honey pot; I could shop on line. I searched for "honey pot" and found a jillion of ‘em and, thanks to similarly-obsessed-reader’s comments, I was able to identify those made in other countries. Even France’s famous Le Creuset has its honey pots made in China!

What a waste of energy it would be to transport my new honey pot halfway around the world! I wanted a beautiful honey pot made in the U.S.A., and by persistence I found one. It arrived today, one of a kind made by Rising Sky Artworks in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

I am a relatively happy woman, but don’t think I’ve gotten off my high horse about single-use plastic. Shopping for groceries today I glanced down an aisle I never use and was struck by one side of the entire aisle filled with single-use plastic bottles and aluminum cans.

What a contrast, huh? One lovely, useful thing that will last beyond my lifetime compared to a whole lot of ugly that will never go away.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer