Shouldn’t dog poop bags be made of post consumer waste? I asked the seller.

On 9/26/2017, I picked up trash, as usual, and found this empty bag.  It’s was a neatly folded plastic bag.  I opened it up (to use it to hold more trash that I found) and saw a sticker on the bag that indicated it was intended for picking up dog poop.  I researched the maker (listed on the sticker) and wrote the following note:

9/26/2017
Note to Best Pet Supplies, Inc.
BestPetHouse.com

I am one of those weirdos who picks up trash. My daughter and I even started a blog:
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash
ProjectPUT.org

One of the things I picked up this morning was an un-used dog poop bag that someone dropped.

I looked for info on it and found your name and logo on the closure sticker.

What I did not see was any info on the bag that is was manufactured with post consumer waste.

Obviously, one is not going to recycle a plastic poop bag filled with dog shit, but at the VERY LEAST, you could consider the earth and make that bag out of post consumer waste. How nice and lasting does a literal sack of shit need to be?

Even better, make your bags biodegradable!

Do we really need for those bags, and shit in those bags, to sit around in pristine condition until our posterity have long since passed along? I don’t think so.

I’m hoping you will consider putting some thought into, and take some responsibility for, what happens to your products (all of them) once they are used.

How about being a leader on this?

Do something good for your future, my future, the future of our children, and the future of all those dogs you make poop bags for?

 

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Related Posts, Information, and Links

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Writing and Calling Companies About Their Packaging
https://projectput.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/writing-and-calling-companies-about-their-packaging/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ProjectPUT/
@ProjectPUT

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/singbooksemily/project-put-pick-up-trash/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Blog:
https://projectput.wordpress.com/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Online:
ProjectPUT.org

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ProjectPUT

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What can we do about the environmental crisis of Fast Fashion?

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FAST FASHION IS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html

Please add your thoughts to mine:

• Check out Zero Waste Daniel clothing line, that’s something
• If we could convince the fashion industry (the designers, manufacturers, advertisers, and merchants that it is enduringly fashionable and cool to reuse and repurpose clothes, then we’ve gotten somewhere.
• Likewise, fast fashion must become a taboo, uncool, unfashionable, and shameworthy.
• If fast fashion were unfashionable, people would not buy it.
• Another idea is to create LASTING demand and desire for clothing that is both recyclable/biodegradable and manufactured from post consumer waste.
• Companies like Teeki, Rumi, Rothy’s and even Adidas are already doing this.
• What needs to happen is for this manufacturing method to become the standard instead of specialty items.
• Another idea is to create a demand for these discarded clothes as a valuable commodity. If manufacturers needed these items to repurpose them for thins like creating other clothes, home insulation, or other repurposing products, then collection systems would be created and people would be incentivized not to create garbage with their old clothes, buy to submit them to the supply line.

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PUT PERCEPTIONS
Thoughts about problems and solutions to littering
https://projectput.wordpress.com/put-thoughts/

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https://www.facebook.com/ProjectPUT/
@ProjectPUT

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/singbooksemily/project-put-pick-up-trash/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Blog:
https://projectput.wordpress.com/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Online:
ProjectPUT.org

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Twitter
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Like Blobs of Fat in the world’s sewers and plastic garbage filling the oceans, being a little more thoughtful and purposeful as a species (as in not being so lazy), we humans could prevent a lot of problems

Huge Blobs of Fat and Trash Are Filling the World’s Sewers
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/fatbergs-fat-cities-sewers-wet-wipes-science/

This is another example that if we were all a little more thoughtful and purposeful (read: “not so lazy”) about the way we did things. The world would be in such better shape!

Here are some ideas (do the best you can):

• Don’t let cooking fat go down the drain (scrape it into garbage)
• Recycle
• Reuse
• But items made from post consumer waste and ask manufacturers to use post consumer waste in their products and packaging
• Don’t use plastic straws (ask for paper or use your own reusable one)
• Buy organic produce
• Pick Up Trash
• Don’t litter
• Be considerate of others (including animals and the environment) and how your waste disposal habits will affect them
• Use reusable containers (rather than prepackaged items) whenever possible 
• Support environmental causes
• Give a hoot, don’t pollute
• Keep America Beautiful

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Related Posts

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PUT PERCEPTIONS
Thoughts about problems and solutions to littering
https://projectput.wordpress.com/put-thoughts/

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https://www.facebook.com/ProjectPUT/
@ProjectPUT

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https://www.pinterest.com/singbooksemily/project-put-pick-up-trash/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Blog:
https://projectput.wordpress.com/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Online:
ProjectPUT.org

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ProjectPUT

 

Asking OXO company to manufacture their products using post consumer waste

I just wrote a letter using the Contact Us page on the OXO website:

Dear OXO,
My family owns quite a few of your products. We like them and they are always useful for their intended purpose.

I’m writing today as a concerned consumer.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish you could manufacture your products using post consumer waste and also make them recyclable for when they break or wear out.

Our world is facing a plastic crisis. It’s been recently discovered that almost 100% of USA’s drinking water is contaminated with microplastics.

I am going to try and write to every manufacturer of products that I purchase for my family to ask them to do this same thing: PLEASE, please, let’s collect up and re-use the plastics that are already in our environment and use those plastics as raw materials for new products. You can be part of a solution by creating an incentive for people willing to collect these materials by buying them to make your products. It’s the right thing to do. And use some of your name recognition to ask your consumers to PLEASE RECYCLE and to be responsible for the waste they create. And please, OXO, please, as a company, accept responsibility for the waste you create in manufacturing and for what happens to the products you create after they have outlived their usefullness.

Please be an industry leader.
If you did, I, and likely a lot of people like me, will feel much better about buying your products and may even buy them on purpose because of your environmentally responsible actions.

Thank you,
Emily Gleichenhaus
Arlington, VA
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash
ProjectPUT.org

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Related Posts, Information, and Links

*

Writing and Calling Companies About Their Packaging
https://projectput.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/writing-and-calling-companies-about-their-packaging/

*
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ProjectPUT/
@ProjectPUT

*
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/singbooksemily/project-put-pick-up-trash/

*
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Blog:
https://projectput.wordpress.com/

*
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Online:
ProjectPUT.org

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ProjectPUT

Project PUT: Pick Up Trash visits New York City

It feels futile to Pick Up Trash in NYC, but when I visit, I do it anyway. There are millions of people in this city and if even only a small percentage of people picked up a couple pieces of litter a day, this would be a much cleaner city. There are trash cans on almost every corner. It’s not like picking up a piece of litter and tossing it in the can 10 steps up the street is really much more of a bother than just walking past it.

Come on, people now!
Pick Up Trash

It’s not difficult and in doing so, you are making a real impact to improve your surroundings.

In addition, New York should REALLY embrace everything to do with reduced, reusable packaging (for example, carry a reusable shopping bag w you in your backpack!) and packaging made from 100% post consumer waste.

One more thing, New Yorkers should mount a HUGE anti-litter campaign.

These actions taken together would vastly improve this already extraordinary city and it’s amazing amenities.

I love New York. And despite the seeming futility, I believe that every PUT, no matter the location and no matter how small, makes a difference.

 

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https://projectput.wordpress.com/put-achievements/

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https://projectput.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/project-put-song-list/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ProjectPUT/
@ProjectPUT

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/singbooksemily/project-put-pick-up-trash/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Blog:
https://projectput.wordpress.com/

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash Online:
ProjectPUT.org

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Project PUT: Pick Up Trash on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ProjectPUT