So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Note: This column appears in the 4/28 issue of The Glendale Star and the 4/29 issue of the Peoria Times Recently, the City of Glendale expanded its recycling program. Unfortunately, this expansion did not include plastic grocery bags, which cannot be recycled because, according to Debbie Coy, Glendale Recycling Coordinator, they “gum up the machinery.” Not cool, bags. My wife and I try to do our part in the ongoing fight against plastic bags. For one thing, we have several reusable shopping bags. Granted, we almost always forget to bring them to the store, but the point is—we have them. We also reuse the plastic bags we acquire as garbage bags in our tiny garbage can . Because these bags often have holes in them, I typically go through a roll of paper towels cleaning up the coffee grinds and miscellaneous liquids the bags leak when I go to dispose of them. Such is the nature of saving nature. Unfortunately, cities like Glendale and Peoria cannot rely solely upon the commitment of envir...

Note: This column appears in the 11/12 issue of The Glendale Star and the 11/13 issue of the Peoria Times After months of deliberation and weeks of searching, my wife and I finally made the important life decision to buy a new garbage can. Now, this wasn’t a decision made easily or without much heartache and gnashing of teeth. What happened was this: The springs on our original garbage can, which we had always kept under the sink, broke. This meant that I could no longer simply pull down the handle and experience the grand convenience of having the lid pop open, thus allowing me to easily dispose of waste. No, instead I had to drag the can out from underneath the sink, open the lid manually and, in the process, get hit with a brick wall of funk made possible when dirty diapers meet onions. So we were in the market for a new garbage can. As a result, I was unusually excited about the normally loathsome trip to Bed Bath & Beyond. Their entire back wall was full of garbage cans as far...