Our condo complex just started compostible recycling: paper towels, paper take out food containers, pizza boxes, food scraps, bones & the like goes into that bin! It has reduced our regular garbage by about 80%. We have had regular recycling for many years for glass, plastics, cans, paper…
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That is a good idea. This kind of make sense.
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Yes, it is. But our society spends money on many things like education and public health and libraries that don’t make a profit but are done because we want them to happen. If we were equally serious about not wasting resources we’d approach recycling in just the same way.
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Probably easier just to not use straw, or people learn to bring their own personal straw 
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What part of the country do you live in?
We have companies you can pay who will supply you with a bin for compostibles and pick them up.
Unfortunately my HOA doesn’t allow compost bins… 
San Francisco Bay Area. Working with Recology. No individual compost bins allowed, just the little pail you keep in your kitchen with compostible bags…
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Rather late to the game, this just caught my eye:
that’s why politicians in Europe are also throwing cotton swabs in the ban
What (dare I ask?) is so particularly heinous about cotton swabs? And what (he asks with even greater trepidation) is one supposed to use to clean (or dry out) one’s ears instead?
ETA: Oh, wait… do they mean cotton swabs with plastic (rather than paper/cardboard) “sticks”? I hate those things… so they can ban those all they want.
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You are not suppose to clean your ears, didn’t you hear?
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No. Oddly enough, given that I do clean my ears.
Carefully, of course. Or is this latest “recommendation” based on something other than a concern that the average idiot-on-the-street will damage theirs (or better yet, their childrens’) by “poking” down into the canal and/or pushing wax and associated gunk down into their ears rather than wiping it gently outward?
I believe that new lid design is what they are using in cities where straws are banned and will be expanding to more stores. Haven’t seen it yet here in nyc but it’s a good solution
I looked it up, it is still plastic and worse, it is bigger in size. Plastic can’t be 100% recycled, around 10 - 15% of the used plastic could be mixed with new plastic to make those “recycled” material, not to say the material can be toxic due to the presence of Bromine in the recycled material.
Why doesn’t Starbuck propose a solution to ditch plastic totally?!
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In the proposition of the ban, it is aiming at single use plastic, which includes cutlery, plates, straws, ballon sticks, cotton swab sticks, drink bottles, drink cups, food containers, cigarette butts, bags, snack bags, wet wipes and sanitary items.
it is aiming at single use plastic, which includes … cotton swab sticks
That’s OK, then. I always buy cotton swaps with cardboard/paper sticks anyway.
Best Buy will recycle your electronics as long as you don’t abuse the process and bring a carload.
Computer monitors and tvs are 25 dollars each.
When I say “around here” I am talking about NYC. I don’t have a car and neither do an awful lot of New Yorkers. Any kind of recycling that requires people to transport heavy stuff to a site themselves (as opposed to having a periodic curbside pickup) is going to ensure that things like tvs and computers are not generally recycled.
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I do see electronics being randomly left on sidewalks (on corners near garbage cans, or in front construction sites and other “untenanted” locations), but given the logistics and cost involved, NYC DOS isn’t doing too badly so far (imo, anyway)
There’s some sort of by-arrangement pick-up available for apartment buildings with 10 or more units, and even in a few other areas, for smaller buildings including single-household “dwellings”. That still leaves quite a few broken-up brownstone/rowhouse-apartment and not-so-high-income private-house-dwellers around the city without a pick-up option, but they do seem to be slowly expanding that by-request pickup program. And while I have no idea what the percentage is, in the parts of the “outer boroughs” where houses are middle-class-affordable, the number of people that do have cars (for better and for worse) seems to be quite a bit higher than it was during any period over the past 40 or so years that I’ve been paying any attention to that sort of thing, …
If this has already been posted I apologize. Too sleepy to do a good job of double checking…
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Or better yet… people stop using single use cutlery.
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If it is a genuine effort 100% degradable and natural, that sounds like good initiative.
I’m sure this was suggested somewhere above but we have been using metal straws for years at home. They obviously don’t dissolve and you can get a pack of 4 or 6 for like $6. I toss them in the dishwasher and haven’t had any problems with them.
Out and about has been a little different. My toddler isn’t fully using a cup yet so I try to remember to bring a sippy cup. The paper straws just disintegrate especially since she loves to blow bubbles into her water now.
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