How much plastic did you throw away today?

I didnt throw any away.I put it all in our recycling bin. Our council provides one for glass/plastic/cans another for garden/food waste and card (which gets composted) & a blue bag for paper. I know plenty of people who say they cant be bothered to separate their rubbish because "no-one else does so whats the point". The point is that, we each have individual responsibility for the planet..

Yes, I've read about and seen pictures and video of the floating plastic "island" out in the Pacific and the damage that it's doing to sea life. It disgusts me that we humans have allowed it to get as bad as it has.

I recycle all of the plastic beverage bottles and jars that we use in our house. We have a curbside pickup each week that collects the bottles and jars stamped with a #2. Since the curbside program doesn't collect plastic stamped with a #5, I recently found out that there is something called Preserve Gimme 5 at the Whole Foods store where you can drop off #5 stamped plastics such as large drink cups from fast food restaurants, yogurt and margarine tubs, etc. and they will recycle the items and make new plastic items out of them. Also there is a store called Aveda nearby that collects rigid plastic bottle caps from soda bottles and jars.

I am glad to have these opportunities to recycle. However, it's frustrating to me that my local curbside recycling program will not accept microwave dinner trays that are stamped with a #2, even though they accept other #2 stamped plastics. I'm not sure why. Maybe they don't accept the food trays because they figure most people would be too lazy to wash them out before placing them in the bin? I would be willing to wash them before recycling them, but that's just me. Those dinner trays are the only plastic I throw into the trashcan, and I am buying those products less frequently because of this reason.