By David Leonhardt
CONSUMER ALERT: do not mix your food container lids. A yogurt
container lid is NOT the same as a margarine container lid, even
if they look the same. How do I know this? Well, here is my
story.
We live in a very hoity-toity county. Sure, it might look like
just farm country. A lot of the houses might seem a little worse
for wear. But we are very picky about what plastic we recycle.
We recycle only those numbered 1 and 2.
In case you did not know, your plastics are numbered. On the
bottom of most containers, there is a number, usually from 1 to
5. I suppose 1 is the best, since anything with a number of 3 or
more just is not high-class enough for us to recycle.
Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. My overactive curiosity
got the better of me and I emptied the fridge to try to figure
out this plastic numbering thing. What else does one do in the
middle of the night when his newborn doesn't want to sleep?
My wife came down to the kitchen. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Just snacking," I replied.
She scanned the table, covered with yogurt, hand cream, cream
cheese, plum sauce, juice, shampoo, and an empty ice cream
bucket. "OK, I'm not actually eating any of these," I admitted.
"I'm looking for numbers on the bottom to see which of these
containers is high-class enough for us to recycle."
"You are NOT recycling our brand new tub of margarine," my wife
declared. "And that juice jug is supposed to last us a few more
years."
"Of course," I said in my most believable comforting tone. "It's
just a curiosity thing".
"Oh, one of those," my wife sighed.
"You see, both the yogurt and margarine containers are made of
PP."
"PP?" my wife asked.
"Yes, PP. Plastic number 5, also called Polypropylene."
"Oh. That's a relief."
"But the lids are not the same. The yogurt top is a number 4,
whereas the margarine top is a number 2."
"You mean the lids are not made of the same plastic as the
containers?" my wife exclaimed.
"Exactly," I replied. "And not the same as each other. There
must be a reason they use for the yogurt top a plastic of such
poor upbringing that our recycling program rejects it. It might
be dangerous to mix them up."
"That's silly."
"Then why else would they need three different plastics for two
simple containers that are used for essentially the same purpose
under the same conditions?"
My wife turned around to leave. "Wait," I cried. "There's
more."
"I was afraid of that."
"The parfait container has no number. Does that mean it's
undercover? The lid is a 4, which means we can switch it with
the yogurt lid, but not with the margarine lid."
"The parfait container is clear. You can see through it. Maybe
they can't recycle see-through plastics."
"Exactly what I thought," I exclaimed. "But look at your
shampoo. It's in a clear bottle, a number 1. But the matching
conditioner, which is not clear, is in a number 2."
"That makes sense," my wife assured me. "Maybe."
"Not really. Number 2 is used in the margarine lid, the big ice
cream bucket and the vitamin jar. Besides, here is another
margarine container made of clear plastic, and it is also a 5
with a 4 lid."
"This is way too confusing," my wife said. "We have a baby to
attend to. She just can't seem to sleep."
"With all our containers mixed up like this, who knows what the
world is coming to," I cried. "No wonder she can't sleep."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR IN PLAIN TEXT
The author is David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy. To receive his
satire column weekly in your inbox, sign up at
http://TheHappyGuy.com/positive-thinking-free-ezine.html or read
more columns at http://TheHappyGuy.com/self-actualization-
articles.html . This article is also viewable at
http://TheHappyGuy.com/plastic-recycling-product.html .
.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR IN HTML
The author is David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy. Read more columns
like this in his http://TheHappyGuy.com/positive-
thinking-free-ezine.html title="Personal growth and happiness
free ezine">weekly Happy Guy column or read more
title="happiness and personal growth articles"> self-
actualization and personal growth articles. This article is
also viewable at http://TheHappyGuy.com/plastic-
recycling-product.html title="Plastic recycling">
http://TheHappyGuy.com/plastic-recycling-product.html.
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David Leonhardt
The Happy Guy
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