Re-cycling plastic is a challenge, I have achieved zero garbage with the organics, I need ideas for dealing with plastic

  My wife and I have succeeded in producing zero organic waste, we use all of our leftover food, vegetable trimmings, peels, cores, and coffee grounds in our worm farm. The little buggers do a great job in turning it into usable castings (for more on worm manure uses follow this Link) that I use mixed with soil when I plant, and liquid worm tea fertilizer many gardeners use in their vegetable beds. I use shredded paper, cardboard, leaves, and eggshells as worm bedding, in fact, two of the best leaves for bedding that I have used is Zucchini plant leaves and Artichoke leaves. They are so big that they can be used to cover the bed to keep the moisture in, water is important to worms.

Artichoke leaves make great worm bedding material.

They eat their way through their environment, almost anything can be a food source for them, there are strict no-no's as well. Worms produce what they eat, and they are affected by some of the foods we eat. Citrus, Garlic, Onions, and Peppers I stay away from, cardboard with shiny covers is also not healthy for them to eat. I won't feed them any kind of manure, feces, or scat, they will surely decompose it and there is a bonafide reason to feed it to them. There are toilets made for worms to work on the deposits and convert it to compost, they will consume any manure. The problem with feeding them scat is it has a tendency to produce Pathogens, which are bacteria, or other micro-organisms that are capable of causing diseases. When the castings are made into tea, or when it is spread in a vegetable garden the Pathogens could spread to the vegetables and sicken whoever consumes them. It's best to know what the worms were fed if their castings are to be used in a vegetable garden.

I know a man that raised worms years ago, I haven't seen him for 30 years or so. He raised his worms on horse manure, it's perfectly OK to do so as it makes great compost, but I suggest not to use it on vegetables. He went out to his worm farm, it was a large one, and all of his worms were dead. Luckily he got his horse manure from his neighbor when he talked to him (the neighbor) about his worms fate and then asked if he had done anything differently than what is normal with his horses. The neighbor told him no, the only thing he did was treat them with de-worming medication, well, worms don't like that either, the hint may be the word "de-worming". Meat, Bones, Fat, Grease, and Oils are all not recommended to be fed to worms when the castings are to be used in a vegetable garden, for the same reasons, Pathogens. (Follow this Link for more on Pathogens.)

There are many publications pertaining to worm bedding and worm food, worm farmers take it very seriously, eccentricity seems to be a pre-requisite to being a worm farmer. Anyway, that's not what this blog is about, it's about zero waste, I've got a handle on paper, cardboard, food waste, garden waste, all of the leaves that fall, and eggshells, now I need to take on plastics. I'm talking about the water bottles, bubble wraps, plastic bags, and all things plastic. While driving across the Mojave Desert a few weeks ago just outside of Brawley we came upon an area of what appeared to be at least a square mile next to the highway. The desert there is full of weeds, and sagebrush, every place they could stick was a plastic bag tossed out of a car window and left to blow in the wind. Fast food cups, bags, and packaging were immediately next to the road, it's the main route between Los Vegas and Los Angelos. (I live in Northern California) I hate seeing that, (hate is a strong word, but it's needed here). I don't know if I could solve that problem of society, but I can sure be certain not to add to the problem.

Any suggestions on dealing with my plastic waste are welcome in the comments. I have thought of some things that could possibly be done with it, but in the end, the plastic is still there. My wife suggested shredding the plastic and using it for stuffing in mattresses for anyone that needs one, it may be a bit crunchy of an idea with some validity. The bags could be woven into a fabric, made into pads, and a bag to hold the stuffing. The plastic stuffing could possibly be used for the next however many thousands of years it would take to render into nothingness.

We produce a lot of plastic waste. 

I read an article in which the writer was exploring the same thing, he made seed starters from empty water bottles, they are actually really useful. I made a few, now all I have to do is to figure out what to do with the other thousands of bottles laying around. It has to be a big solution for a big volume of waste, at some point something will have to be done with it.

I thought of using shredded plastic in hydroponic farming, even mixing shredded plastic in with my potting soil, kind of like mulch. Like most of my ideas they don't last very long, this one died in about 3 minutes, right after I asked my self what would I do with the stuff after it was used if there is an after. I'd still end up with plastic in the same form as when it was added to the water or the soil. It would be delaying the inevitable and would still have to be dealt with. It's kind of depressing to think the bottles I am drinking water out of today will still be around when my grandkids, grandkids are my age.

 I just don't have many ideas, I suspect a successful one is worth a lot of money, unfortunately, that is the main motivation for most actions to be made on anything. Plastic is made from petroleum, that's about as much as I know about its composition, but it does burn. I thought about using it all as boiler fuel, we use tires, garbage, and other solid waste why not plastics? Costs may be prohibitively expensive due to emission controls and monitoring systems, as black as the smoke is when a bottle is burned I'd venture to say cleaning up that exhaust would be very costly. Then there is the ash, it's hard telling what would be in it, so right off hand burning the waste even in a controlled environment is most likely out of the question.

Recycling remains the best option for me, but China has stopped taking our plastic waste. They stated that it's no longer an option to place the people working in re-cycling at risk any longer. The danger is well taken from my perspective, they don't know what is in the bottles, some are contaminated with liquids they are not able to identify. People were getting sick and the Chinese Government decided to do something about it, so they don't take our waste any longer. No longer can we ship it off to a far-off land to be dealt with in any way they want as long as we don't know about it, it's just dandy. However, that still leaves us with re-cycling and building the facilities needed to process the mountains of the stuff we produce.

It would be great if the answer was to toss it in the "blue can" and have it hauled away once a week to the magical land of recycling, one has to wonder if it's being processed correctly there as well. I am not one to question everything every Government agency or program does, especially programs like recycling. It's the glitch in the process that concerns me, just often enough when a program changes (China in this case) whatever follows is not up to par with what was there beforehand. Especially when the infrastructure is no longer in existence. I have worked in enough processing plants to know that there are always plan "B's", and there has to be.

I worked at one plant that processed water for re-use, it was a good program as well. I was the supervisor in charge of the wastewater treatment plant, the level would rise and fall in the settling tanks which resembled swimming pools. Four times a week the pond would begin to overflow, and a valve would be opened to allow the waste to be sent to the cities sewer system. That was a $20,000.00 fine every time that valve was opened, it was, in fact, unlawful to let it go into the sewer, we came up with an idea. The operator and I decided not to open the valve, we had noticed that the wastewater level would rise and just overflow the containment pond then recede after about an hour or slightly more. All it took after it receded was a fire hose to wash the area down, we had saved the company $20,000.00 a day, but more importantly, we were no longer sending the tainted water to the city for processing.

A typical wastewater processing plant.

Everything has a solution, some solutions need a problem also, in the end, the water recycling was not a problem, no one took the time to think about it until the operator and I stood there for a few days watching it. I feel the same with the plastic, there are some very good scientists and engineers working on the plastics problem, but sometimes things are solved by people out of the groove. (So to speak). Curious thinking people are capable of changing the world, maybe I can think of a solution for the littering, after all.

Thanks for reading my blog and sharing it on this rainy weekend, it makes for good sleeping, and after the sun comes out we'll be able to watch all the greenery grow. Leave a comment, sometimes in languages other than English I struggle with an answer, but believe me, I try. Thanks again!

jacquesandkate  Emergencykitsplus.com