Mary Alice Cahill

Beyond BYOBag Warwick

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
191 TOTAL

participant impact

UP TO

6.0

pieces of litter

picked up
UP TO

9.0

plastic containers

not sent to the landfill

Mary Alice's actions

Food

Buy Unpackaged Produce

I will purchase produce items without plastic packaging.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Lifestyle

Naked Bins

I will either line my trash cans with repurposed newspaper or paper bags, or I will not line my trash cans at all.

COMPLETED 4
DAILY ACTIONS

Food

Use Reusable Bags

I will not accept any disposable bags when making purchases, including produce bags.

COMPLETED 5
DAILY ACTIONS

Pets

Pet Waste

I will spend 10 minutes learning how to compost pet waste at home or research pet waste composting services available in my area.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Pets

All Natural Pet Toys

I will give my pets natural alternatives to toys like femur bones and antlers, canvas, natural rubber, hemp, rope or cotton toys. Or I will make our own toys from recycled items found in our home!

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Personal Care

Just Say No

I will avoid buying toxic plastics, including polycarbonate, polystyrene and polyvinyl.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Community

Keep My Community Clean

I will pick up 3 piece(s) of litter each day.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Lifestyle

Travel Smart

If traveling, I will bring my own plastic free items (water bottle, grocery bags, collapsible food containers, utensils, straws, etc.) with me.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

Mary Alice Cahill 7/16/2019 7:35 PM

I’ve been busy cleaning out my aunt’s house who saved lots of plastic! I felt good dropping off a 30 Gallon Bag filled with plastic bags at Price Chopper last week. It will be used to make a park bench. I saw an article in the Warwick Advertiser that got me on a mission.
http://www.warwickadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20190519/NEWS01/190519931/Plastic-destined-for-landfill-turned-into-benches-instead

I’ve already started another bag. Just amazing how it adds up!
Here is a list of what can be included:
The acceptable plastic material for recycling is that which comes into homes every single day: grocery bags, newspaper sleeves, dry cleaning bags, bread and produce bags, case overwrap (such as that around cases of water bottles, toilet paper bundles, or packages), sandwich and other resealable bags, bubble wrap, salt bags and cereal bags.

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- Michael Helme 7/17/2019 12:20 PM
  
  Yes, that's a good thing. Also, I've heard they are supposed to take any "plastic film", which means if is plastic and you can stretch it, they will take it.
  
  But in a bigger perspective, I saw that to reach the 500 pounds of plastic to get one bench, one needs about 40,500 plastic bags. If in Warwick we consume about 11,000,000 shopping bags/year, that means every year, if we just collected all the shopping bags (not even touching "newspaper sleeves, dry cleaning bags, bread and produce bags, yadda yadda"), we'd be kicking out north of 250 benches/year. Recycling plastic is good; re-using plastic is better; and reducing/refusing plastic is best.
  
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- Carol White 7/17/2019 5:58 AM
  
  What a great use for those plastic shopping bags!
  
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- Christy Erfer 7/16/2019 9:23 PM
  
  Good going Mary Alice! Thanks for the link to the article. A bench is much better than plastic in the ocean, clogging the waterways, or choking animals. With educational programs like the EcoChallenge and the plastic film collection, someday (please!) there will be so much less plastic in our lives. Hope we get there soon... how many park benches do we have room for?!!
  
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