My name is Renee Koval-Huenuqueo. I am the Rise Above Plastics (RAP) Coordinator for the Gray’s Harbor Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. I was born, raised, educated, I worked, raised a family and retired here, in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve long been worried about the welfare of our planet, and I am happy to have found the Surfrider Foundation which provides a way I can participate in taking care of our environment.
One day while I was cleaning the kitchen, I picked up an empty yogurt tub, washed it out, and tossed it into the recycling bin on top of several other yogurt tubs. I stood there a moment, looked at them, and I thought to myself “That’s a lot of yogurt tubs. Thank goodness they’rerecyclable.” A doubt about how recyclable such items really are passed through my mind, but I pushed it aside knowing that I’d done the responsible thing, what we’re all asked to do; recycle certain plastics, and make sure they are clean before tossing them into the bin. A couple weeks later, I was at a meeting for citizens concerned about the problem of plastics; a meeting that was the forerunner of our Gray’s Harbor Surfrider Chapter.
A woman was there. She seemed very knowledgeable about recycling in our area, and she said, “Oh no. Those yogurt tubs certainly are not recyclable.” I sat there in confused embarrassment thinking, “But of course they are. I recycled them all the time while living in Seattle.” When I got home, I googled the problem, and discovered that yes, in some cities such tubs indeed were recyclable; however, Ocean Shores, WA at that time was not one of them. Unknowingly, I’d been contributing to the plastics problem ever since moving here. Full disclosure here. Although it’s questionable how effective plastics recycling truly is, these tubs are now accepted for recycling. Check Grays Harbor LeMay's for questions about what you can and can’t put into the bins. In any case, my earlier confusion brings up one of the many reasons plastics recycling is problematic. There is no consistency from city to city or even between agencies responsible for recycling and trash collection as to which items are accepted for recycling. (This is one of several issues the failed ReWrap bill, which I will address in my next Blog. I’m still in mourning for the loss of that bill.)
I left that meeting with a feeling of shame that I was partaking in the cycle of plastics pollution, a cycle that I was hoping to learn how to escape from. I could save the yogurt tubs and reuse them as the manufacturers would like. But I don’t find the tubs particularly useful. Even if I did find a use for them, how many could I actually reuse? It would be better not to buy them in the first place. But does that mean that I’d have to give up yogurt merely because I don’t want to put another tub in the landfill? That’s not a solution. However, I remembered that when I was in college, I regularly made my own yogurt, and I remembered that it wasn’t hard. Maybe I could make it again, keep it in a nice glass jar, and continue enjoying yogurt without the guilt of buying the tub.
I opened my laptop and googled “how to make yogurt” and discovered that the process isn’t complicated. I could do this, just like I used to when I was in college. Except this time, since I was no longer a starving student, I would jazz up the process a little by purchasing a yogurt maker. I had to experiment with the instructions to find what works for me. Now that I've been making my own yogurt for a year and a half, I have to say that I still get little tingles of pride every time I open the refrigerator and see those pretty glass jars filled with my homemade yogurt. And my family and friends are quite impressed with me (Shhh! Don’t tell them how easy it is.) To top it all off, I’ll always treasure the memory of the moment when I tossed that final tub into the bin, victoriously dusted off my hands, knowing that I would never, ever add another yogurt tub to the sea of plastic waste that is devouring our environment. But then I started looking around my home and I wondered, “Hmmm... what else should I be doing?”
That’s when I opened the refrigerator and saw a tub of store-bought hummus. I had heard that hummus is really quite easy to make. The next project, I guess. I wish I liked to cook. You might suppose my effort with the yogurt tubs pales when faced with the enormity of the problem our earth and oceans are facing. And I’m certainly not suggesting that we all must start making our own yogurt. (Though I will note that I’ve seen this very suggestion on more than one of those lists I mentioned earlier about how to reduce single-use plastics.) The problem of plastic pollution is so overwhelming that it seems like it’s already too late. Why bother?
But I am gratified to find that there are a lot of people out there who truly wish to eliminate the use of plastics in our environment. After all, saying “no” to plastic in our packaging has to start somewhere. My little beginning is that I estimate that since I’ve been making my own yogurt, I’ve already kept 108 empty tubs out of the environment. And that’s not including all the tubs I would be adding to the problem had I not made this one little change. How much more plastic will I be able to keep out of our environment when I eliminate other sources I personally use? Thus began my journey to a home free of single-use plastics.
To learn more about Surfrider's Rise Above Plastics Program here!