What to do with Newspaper Bag?

For the longest time we did not know what to do with the plastic bag the daily paper is put in that is delivered to our house door. The recycle situation of both these items in our county is such, that they would end up in the landfill. So after a number of ideas, including to maybe not order the paper anymore, we came up with two different solutions.

1. We take one of the bags and put it a convenient spot in a cupboard, which itself holds the other bags. When we pick up the paper, the plastic bag goes there and the rubber band goes into a jar sitting on top of our fridge. Once we have a bag fully stuffed with other bags, we fill the majority of the rubber rings in another of these bags and take both with us when we go downtown, where the offices are of the newspaper. They take it back and reuse both.

2. Have not tried that yet, but just recently found out that the carrier is more than happy to take both back directly. So we can put it right where the paper is dropped off at our doorstep. That is even more simple and it saves the carrier expenses, who has to buy the bags and rubber bands with their own money.

It is really interesting to take a step back and look at all the items we are putting in the garbage. In many areas there is at least some sort of limited recycling available. Now recycling is a step in the right direction. Take an item that is broken or unusable for whatever reason and make raw material out of it for another item. Often though what happe3ns is that the new item is of “lower” quality than the original item. Another aspect is that suddenly a new industry becomes dependent on the flow of recycled material, leading to the interesting phenomenon that we have to consume enough or more to create a lot of recycled raw materials from lots of recycled products. This leads to a cycle that can easily become not really sustainable. And the argument can be made that we need more material other wise the economy will suffer.

In case of the plastic bag and rubber band this dynamic is easily changed by finding ways to reuse something before we recycle it. Reusing will save raw materials, energy and can become a socially fun and valuable activity, including garage sales, barter fairs and swaps.