Friday’s tip was about recycling those little bits of plastic, like bottle caps.  They say that in the USA, recyclers don’t really want these caps because they are too small for their automated processes, they can get mixed in with the wrong kind of plastic, and, if attached, keep unwanted air in the bottles.

While my local council here does take them (but do they actually get recycled?), that’s not the case all over the UK.  If yours doesn’t, the bottle caps page at the ReduceReuseRecycle might offer some help, although the options were extremely limited when I checked.

Ideal Bite claims Aveda stores will start taking them, which is really cool except not yet true in the UK…but I called and they said they were looking into it so that’s good news.

Most alarming was the link Ideal Bite included to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s site on the Albatross. Apparently in the North Pacific, 40% of Laysan albatross chicks die each year because their bellies are full of plastic (much of that plastic comes from land first).  That’s far more than the occasional bird dying.  Click “A Deadly Diet” on the Monterey Bay Aquarium site to see what came out of one bird. Once in Cornwall we watched a seagull down a practically full packet of Extra Strong Mints.  Ok, I know this country has a lot of seagulls, but thinking about what the Extra Strong Mints did to that bird’s stomach makes me feel sick.

I’ll admit that sometimes the convenience of plastic does win me over.  However, it’s images like these that really make me think twice.

Layson Albatross photo by Tatters:).