Newspaper Sleeves Blowin’ in the Wind

Almost every morning, I would throw away the plastic bags that protect my newspaper from being exposed to outside elements. Over time, these plastic bags can contribute to a lot of waste in overfilled landfills. Instead of sentencing another bag to taking up space in a garbage dump, I wanted to recycle the bags.

However, even though many of the bags have the triangle recycling sign with number 4 on it, our local recycling waste collection services do not take them. Plastic bags are some of the hardest things to recycle. Not only do they fly away easily or jam machinery, but it also takes a seemingly infinite number of bags to accumulate a decent-size load. So a lot of recyclers just draw the line at Number 2 grocery bags, and leave those less common Number 4’s blowin’ in the wind (or buried in the landfill).

I was told that reusing the plastic newspaper bags is actually preferable to recycling when comparing a cost-benefit-analysis. Preventing a new item from being manufactured saves more energy and resources, than recycling one.

Ever so often, I noticed newspaper sleeve bags at the end of my neighbors’ driveway. They said it was to give them back to the newspaper carrier because he pays for these bags. He is delighted to have some returned to him for reuse.

Today’s gift was to bag my newspaper plastic sleeves and leave them at the end of the driveway for my carrier to collect. It felt good to recycle, keep the carrier from having to purchase more bags and to keep the newspaper sleeves from blowin’ in the wind.

In Giving and Reusing,

Robin