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Buy It Now

November 25th, 2024 at 05:35 pm

Recently I watched the program on Netflix called "Buy It Now." It was touted as a way businesses encourage consumers to purchase things. It was both a frightening program and enlightening.

Sadly we do not have a recycling program in the county where I live. I try to reuse and repurpose as much stuff as I can and use a lot of containers and things over and over. But even so, the amount of stuff disposed of is considerable. One of the speakers went into a grocerty store and showed how so many products are encased in plastic, most of which is not recyclable -- although some claims to be.

I grew up in the 60s. My Papa worked for Coca-Cola Bottling and they actuall reused the glass bottles. He worked on the bottler, which contained machines that cleaned and sterilized bottles before filling and capping the bottles. I remember having to pay a deposit on the bottles of Coke when we bought them at the store, but these same bottles when returned would then have that deposit returned. Although not the most convenient, it sure was a better use of resources than all this plastic. In this video, it showed how much plastic isn't really recycled, but often said it is, then sent to third world countries for them to deal with. 

I've read articles which I'm sure most of you have on grocery stores put things on certain shelves to entice. I've seen the perusasion techniques about better get this now since there are so few and you don't want to miss out. 

As we face the biggest season of consumerism, I wish more people would pay attention to what this film said. I'm guilty of some of these items, but I try not to buy more than what I need or can use. I have been baking cookies for our bazaar and have been using some of the clam shell plastic cases to carry cookies to put in the freezer. I try to take my own cloth bags into the grocery. But I'm a long way from keeping from buying stuff that can't be recycled. I'm not really sure if that is at all possible unless one doesn't buy stuff at all -- the business world has made it almot impossible. We don't have any of those stores where you take your own jars to fill with stuff. And living in a small town, I don't have that many shopping choices. I try to make my big shopping when I got to a larger city where I can buy what I need and what is packaged, but that doesn't always work either. 

 

7 Responses to “Buy It Now”

  1. GoodLiving Says:
    1732568595

    I remember buying soda buy the bottle and my Dad would buy his beer - the cheapest by the case of bottles too. I would go with him to the liquore store sometimes. I've got one of those cardboard boxes from the glass returnable bottles of beer. They are super sturdy.

  2. Tabs Says:
    1732589003

    I think it's wonderful to try to recycle as much as possible.

  3. mumof2 Says:
    1732597621

    I remember when bottles were made of glass and reused. Although where we live we have a place that you can fill up your own jars/bags etc. they sell all sorts including candy...we use it often (for healthy stuff not candy)...I have to admit that our state we have had reusable bags for years...if you don't take bags with you then you either buy them (various kinds) or don't use bags...we haven't had plastic bags in years...we also usually take fruit/vege bags with us..they have reusable ones...which we do use at times and reuse them in our smaller bins...but most of wheat we buy isn't in plastic....we recycle as much as we can..our council has general waste, recyclable waste and green waste bins.

  4. Dido Says:
    1732893942

    Here near the East Coast, at least one of the larger grocery chains (Wegmans) has a bulk-purchase aisle--and they charge you per bag if you don't provide your own shopping bags.

    We are such a wasteful society, and it's not going to get any better in the near term, while all the while microplastics continue to accumulate in our bodies.

  5. PatientSaver Says:
    1733590654

    I'm so glad you are so recycling-conscious when your own county doesn't offer any recycling. That sounds unusual to me.

    Where I live, we are told that black plastic cannot be recycled and must be trashed, yet I notice many retailers like Aldi's still use it. I wrote Aldi's a letter about it but never got a response.

    I try to recycle as much as possible, though after living with hand-me-downs most of my life, I admit to liking "new." But instead of tossing a lot of stuff, I gift most of it in my Buy Nothing group. I also try to make up for waste that I generate by serving on the board of a statewide litter cleanup group and participating in as many cleanups as I can.

  6. PatientSaver Says:
    1733591047

    Our public works department, which manages the dump (really a transfer station) and recycling programs, has been making a big push on composting of kitchen food scraps, including non-vegetable stuff like meat or fish bones. That's because they compost the stuff in an indoor facility that apparently won't attract critters. They are doing this because food waste accounts for one-third of all household waste here, which may seem hard to believe but is true. In the spring, those who participate in the program can get free compost for their gardens. They are also requiring residents to put all regular trash in specially designated orange bags so they can be weighed, so the town can determine if the kitchen food scraps program is working to reduce trash volume. They distributed enough orange bags so each household got enough to come out to 2 bags a week, which is plenty for me, but there were many people complaining about this becus if you exceed this amount, then you have to pay for extra bags (very nominal cost).

    We have a number of incinerators in the state that burn trash, but one was shut down a few years ago so we couldn't burn all the trash (horrible for the environment since plastics and who knows what else are being burned), so they had to start trucking trash out to states in the midwest that would take it, for a fee. They are trying to reduce the need for that with the kitchen waste composting program.

  7. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1734035907

    I recycle and compost what we can. It's also the plastics aren't clean enough to be recycled.

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