Plastics Glut and the Myth of Recycling

Last night Hammett, most unusually, did not greet me at the door when I got home from work, nor did he appear after I’d been inside for a few moments, long enough that I started to fear he wasn’t there at all. Then I spotted him sitting in the bathtub next to a tub of fine washables, which were soaking in Ecover Laundry Wash.

Fortunately, he was not in the fine washables. For a cat, he is inordinately fond of water.

He emerged reluctantly. When I picked him up, I could feel that the bottoms of his feet were very cold, so he must have been in there for a while. I think something must have scared him. Soon he was back to his customary alert and enthusiastic temperament.

For soaking fine washables, I am very fond of the aforementioned Ecover Laundry Wash, which has a pleasant lavender smell, yet does not cause itching. It’s good for concealing, and perhaps even removing, the olfactory evidence of cycling.

For my regular laundry, I have been using Vaska Herbal Fresh Laundry Liquid, which is quite economical and gets my clothes clean while imparting no scent at all. Tom has switched to it, too.

However, last night (or this morning) I opened a new 64-oz. container of it that, to my admittedly hypersensitive nose, smelled of ammonia, though ammonia is not among the listed ingredients. I called the Vaska lady in Berkeley and she said it should not smell like ammonia and that she would check the current batch, though I probably bought the container in question months ago.

I asked if ammonia will wreck my clothes and she said indeed not; that some people use ammonia on purpose as a brightener. So I told her I will go ahead and use the container that smells funny, and in the future, I will take a wee sniff before purchasing.

They also make a version that is lavender-scented and which is purple. She said it does not make your clothes purple because it is a very mild food-based (I think she said that) coloring which does not attach to clothing fibers. The reason they use the coloring is so people can tell the difference between their two products, but she said that they are soon moving to a non-see-through packaging which should make the difference between the two obvious, and then they’ll stop using the coloring.

I started our conversation by saying, “Last night—or this morning; either last night or this morning … ”

I couldn’t believe I couldn’t remember which it was, considering that it happened so recently, so I concluded I’m going into my final decline and called my parents to give them my end-of-life instructions.

“Oh, goodness, you’re just like your father,” said my mother, adding, “He’s right here, so I can’t say more.”

She said the same thing one day when I said, “Where’s my handkerchief? Where’s my handkerchief? I can’t find my handkerchief. If I could just find my handkerchief, life would be perfect.”

I told her that I wish my life to be prolonged no matter what. Even if I appear to be a complete vegetable, I wish all measures taken to keep my physical processes running.

“Even if it costs us a lot of money?”

“No, employing my own financial assets only. Do not spend any of your own money. Also, if I’m in a hospital bed and I’m completely paralyzed and the doctors say I’m in a coma, probably inside I will be saying, ‘Help! Help! I’m in here,’ so please try all means of establishing contact.”

I continued, “Like, say, ‘Move your eyelid if you can hear me. Wiggle your toe if you can hear me.’”

“The doctors probably know all those things.”

“‘Close and open your belly button if you can hear me.’”

“Ew.”

Macworld is currently underway. When I strolled through Yerba Buena Gardens, near the expo, I saw a group of Chinese gathered to protest the nasty crap that ends up in their air and water from our discarded electronics. The idea of electronics meant to be used once and thrown out, like disposable cell phones, is particularly horrifying.

If you want to feel discouraged about recycling, especially of plastics, an amazing amount of which is now in our oceans, read Elizabeth Royte’s Garbage Land. There is also a long article on plastic in the ocean in the latest Harper’s Magazine. A lot of plastic that is marked as recyclable does not end up being reused. The only solution is to buy as little of it as possible in the first place.

Yes, my beloved Ecover and Vaska products both come in plastic containers. I checked Rainbow’s bulk section and saw they have at least one or two things I could use, such as hand lotion, so I can keep reusing containers I already own. Frankly, I don’t know that every little bit does help, but it still seems like the right thing to do.