Yet another recycling saga

You may recall that last year during my 'No Impact Week Challenge' I found out that soft plastics were a 'no-go' in terms of recycling... pretty much anywhere in this fine Province.  So you can just imagine my delight when I arrived at my recyling depot last week and found a sign stating that they are now accepting plastic bags.  Those of you who follow me on facebook might have seen my post about this miraculous day.  If you missed it, it read:

Best. Day. Ever. ... Okay, maybe not ever, but a great day nonetheless. My recycling depot is now accepting plastic bags!!! I have been saving any/all of those things for just the occasion. About 6 years. Yes, literally. It's the small things really...

You might be thinking to yourself, wow, is this chick ever DRAMATIC!  And, you would be right... remember, this is the same lady who uses CAPSlock for EVERYTHING and ellipses and exclamation points and... well, you get the point.  Anyway, needless to say, I was pretty stoked about the recycling development in my community.

For some reason, call it a whim, or call it intuition that somethings really ARE too good to be true, I decided to call the town prior to dropping of my latest recycling bags.  I think you know where I am going with this...  THEY HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!!!!!  And actually, they were pretty indignant that I would suggest such a thing.  Soooooo, I proceeded to take all of the newly added bags out of my recycling pile (*sigh), and headed down to the recycling station with my iPhone handy... you know, just in case I was ACTUALLY RIGHT.  Which, ahem, I was:

Soooo, of course, I phoned the town again (they were a little less indignant this time), and believe it or not, I kept my cool.  Here was the forwarded e-mail reply from their service provider...

Yes, this bin is just being used as a switch while the regular bin's door
is repaired... this bin is from another area that accepts these materials
(even though no markets exist for most non-stamped film plastic (most
plastic bags fall under this category) and therefore much of this material
ends up being land-filled anyways -- which is why we don't accept it in our
program).

The proper bin will be placed back into service by the week after next at
latest.
Soooo, I guess this means I am back to storing 6 years worth of plastic bags (about a garbage bag full)... anyone have any brilliant ideas what I could/should do with them?

Marebare

Schizophrenic Shopper

Recently, I have been putting Chephren in a dayhome for a few hours a week just so I could get a few things done.  You know, quality 'me' time: grocery shopping, going to the bank/post office, etc.  HA!  Actually, I have been able to sneak in a few yoga classes here and there as well. 

Anyway, on one of these occasions, I took the opportunity to 'enjoy' some child-free grocery shopping.  Thinking that I was about to enjoy a 'relaxing' shopping experience, you can imagine my surprise when I left the store 45 minutes later with my heart racing and in a puddle of my own sweat.  Upon returning home and unpacking the groceries, I finally determined the reason why...

Here is a pic of a few of the 'pantry goods' that I brought home, see if you can guess what my frustration might be:

Ok, it is probably not that obvious unless you are thinking the way that I am thinking (which is highly unlikely), but about half of the products in my cart were organic or 'natural' and the other half weren't.  You might wonder, how in the heck did I prioritize when to buy organic and when not to... the truth is, I didn't.  In other words, other than the clean fifteen and dirty dozen theory (which I follow as closely as possible), I really don't have a 'system' for buying my groceries. 

Well, I guess that is not entirely true.  I am pretty strict on our meat purchases, which we get entirely from local farms.  If I can't buy it locally than I ensure that I buy it organically.  This one is a no-brainer to me.  Some other items that I insist on buying organically and/or locally include:

• coffee (fair trade)
• honey (it is harvested from our land - cool!)
• eggs
• things that my son eats a lot of: yogurt, cereal, pasta dinners, raisins

Other than that, I really tend to be hit or miss, some days I buy organically and some days not.  I was all about buying my dairy products organically until I found out from a very good source that we have legislation in Alberta that prevents dairy farmers from giving milk-producing cows any antibiotics or hormones.  This made me feel much better about the dairy situation and has helped me save some dinero on all things cows milk. 

Feedback, comments?  What system (if any) do you guys use?  Am I destined to forever be a 'schizophrenic' shopper?  Help!

Happy February by the way, it couldn't have come soon enough for this hurtin' Albertan!

Marebare