COLUMN: Pre-cycle before you recycle

Pre-cycle and you won't need to recycle
By Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

When it comes to green living, recycle is the word.

But recycling is not a cure-all. First, many products are not recyclable. Second, recycling is not an energy-neutral activity; it takes energy to transport recyclables and to process them for reuse.
That's why advocates say that instead of counting solely on recycling, we should engage in "pre-cycling," in other words avoiding unnecessary packaging at the time of purchase. Pre-cycling is really about pre-thinking your shopping trip and, as always, experimenting.

I started my pre-cycling efforts last week at the grocery store. I headed for the produce corner. I decide on a naked cucumber (not shrink-wrapped in plastic) and put it in my cart. I would wash and peel the cucumber anyway, so I didn't mind it touching the cart. Operation Pre-cycling was going fabulously.
But then I needed apples. Six of them. It's not that I minded having them roll around in my cart with the cucumber, but it would have been a mess trying to round them up at the cashier. And what about a head of lettuce? Somehow it seemed wrong to put this wet, unprotected vegetable in the dirty cart. So vulnerable. Maybe I am just a softy for lettuce.


So I gave in and put the lettuce in a small plastic produce bag, the type that is not recyclable and the type that you throw away within minutes of arriving home. Plastic bags are made with fossil fuels, a nonrenewable resource, and their production generates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

In addition, the costs of "free" plastic bags are passed on to the consumers in the form of higher prices.
And finally, plastic bags languish in landfills for hundreds of years, or fly away and contaminate marine and land environments. Flakes of plastic from bags create huge floating garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean.

And here I was with my lettuce in a plastic bag. Operation Pre-cycling started to look like abject failure.

What I needed, I decided, was the reusable equivalent of a plastic produce bag, smaller than the big reusable bags and lighter so it wouldn't register on the cashier's scale. Turns out, these bags are sold online but they cost a pretty penny (sometimes $10 apiece). Instead, I bought some fabric, borrowed a sewing machine (thank you, Nickie) and made eight bags of various sizes.

At the store, I filled them with tomatillos, lettuce, mushrooms and limes. I arrived at the cashier a little self-consciously, fearing that my homemade bags would prompt some eye-rolling. But the cashier didn't even blink as she peeked inside the bags (they are not transparent) and weighed them. That's a professional right there.

The epilogue of my story is that all the produce did well in the fridge without plastic bags, except, ironically, the lettuce, which started to go limp after a day.


More pre-cycling tips for you:

Avoid prepared food.

Buy in bulk; buy concentrated liquids.

Buy from the deli counter; they tend to use less packaging when wrapping meats and cheeses.

Buy plastic containers with a 1 or 2 printed in a triangle at the bottom; they are recyclable in El Paso.

At the coffee shop, bring your own cup or ask for a reusable cup.

Avoid disposables like paper napkins.

Carry a reusable water bottle.

Remember that what you buy tells businesses what you want to buy.

Buy less (more on that in the next column).See pictures of the reusable produce bags at www.lagreenga.com.

Send questions and comments on green matters to Louie Gilot on her blog, www.lagreenga.com.