Yep. Plastic use is problem in general. We don’t have the requisite, domestic, plastic recycling infrastructure in place, as the plastic import ban in China has demonstrated. Paper, glass and metal recycling doesn’t seem nearly as disrupted.
More packaging is moving to plastic and more often, in a form that’s harder to recycle (e.g. paper/plastic and other mixed laminates).
So yeah, our family is avoiding buying drinks in plastic bottles and over-packaged goods.
No ban on bags here in suburban Chicago – although you can declare a desire for plastic over paper – or else you can buy a recyclable bag. I had a couple recyclable bags from a particular specialty chain and when I came in with one. the manager said “It is nice to see one of these bags again” – meaning, people buy the bags and use them for other things.
I think it is definitely about where you shop. If you go into Trader Joe’s in the Chicago suburbs without your own bags, you definitely get the side eye from a few people.
Actually, I was talking about Trader Joes…although I do not go there often anymore…!!
And maybe I am immune to people with “side eyes”!!
Soda generally tastes better in glass bottles than they do in plastic bottles! Though the place to turn the empty ones in is far off from home and we cant get there easily!
Though I wish I knew a lot more about these things! I’ve not been very invested in these things. Even with the European youth protesting all around!
The marketing team / company that packaged bananas like that should be sentenced to having all their grapes shrink-wrapped. Individually. M&Ms too.
Bags aren’t banned in our locale currently. Generally I’m not a huge fan of banning because they usually create other problems elsewhere. Plastic bags originally were supposed to save trees used for paper, right? Rather than banning or charging to change individual behavior, I think a lot more should be done on the manufacturer level and public education. There’s a whole lot of confusion about what can actually be recycled and what can’t. And putting the burden on the individual in the form of punitive behavior modification rather than education isn’t a winning strategy IMHO. I also tend to agree with the germy thing with the alternatives. That’s another area for education.
Does McDonalds have paper straws in the states?
Not in my state.
Here in Mexico, McDonalds doesn’t give out straws anymore, at least not at the ones I’ve been to.
Last time I was in Mexico, the soft drinks from the neighborhood stores were served in plastic bags with straws if you didn’t want to pay the bottle deposit. (Sadly, lots of dental problems with the kids raised on soda pop)
We were on vacation in Hawaii, and recycle bins were by all the trash cans, some of the places used biodegradable straws for drinks. No bags in the stores, but you could buy a paper bag pretty cheap if you didn’t have one.
I’ve only seen the plastic bags with straws for the “fruit waters” sold on the street out of big jugs. It is a better option I guess than styrofoam cups, which would be the other choice.
Here in California, most single-use plastic bags have been banned since late 2016, and in many urban and progressive localities they were banned for quite a bit longer than that. Just speaking from my own experience, I’m happy to have the ban in place. We have a big roadside litter problem in most of the state’s urban areas and their connector freeways - especially in the San Francisco Bay Area - and single-use plastic bags used to be a major component of that. The ban eliminated new sources for that component overnight. Now if only all the rest of the garbage could be as handily managed!
But anyway, no longer seeing plastic bags blowing across the freeway or fluttering in the breeze from the snag of a tree or fence, has significantly improved my mood while driving. I’m all for the ban. I offer my regrets over the overall-carbon-footprint issue, but I’ll admit I prefer seeing cleaner streets, creeks, and shorelines, than subtle fractional incremental effects on climate that I can’t discern from all the rest.
My parents made yogurt at home when I was young. Maybe they were doing something wrong. It was disgusting.
Or maybe you just had an unrefined palate. 
I have made yogurt at home, some was good, some that I did not keep at the right temp or let run too long truly was disgusting, so in the end, I just buy at the store, since I am the only one who eats it.
Some interesring verses for those curious about ecotheology:
For sustainable use of resources see:
Deuteronomy 20:19, Isaiah 37:24, Habakkuk 2:17, Proverbs 21:20
King Solomon said it was important to be happy (Ecclesiastes 3:12). Nature has been proven to make people more happy and calm, and King Solomon agreed (Ecclesiastes 2:6).
Human life is also sacred (Genesis 9:6) and endangered by air pollution and climate change.
Anything else?
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