One of the daily things that bugs me is the amount of trash we dump.  I really hate to think about the amount of things we throw away each day and where it landed up in.

To make myself and the earth feel better. I started an in-house program last year that collect used bottles from customers. After collecting all the bottles, we will separate it into useable and recyclable. Reusable goes to our basin for sterile cleaning and re-use. Recycling goes to the glass recycling bins. This is so much I can do for glass bottles. How about plastics and paper bags? Well, besides re-using them to collect trash, the presentable ones will end up as carry bags for customers.

Recently, I came across an website that that states that 80,000 tons of flexible plastic packaging are manufactured each year in Indonesia and for every one ton of manufacturing, there’s 30 tons of waste. As we know there are no safe disposal methods for flexible plastic, it may accumulate and then sit in a landfill forever. This is gross fact and it is suffocating the earth.  And because there are no traditional recycling techniques for this type of plastic it has little resale market value.

The XSProject Foundation acquires the plastic from trash pickers before it piles up in toxic landfills. XSProject is the brainchild of visual artist and environmental activist Ann Wizer, who conceived of this initiative in the mid-90s while living in the Philippines.  The non-profit XSProject Foundation was established in 2004 with the aim of increasing environmental awareness and helping the trash picker communities by providing assistance for daily needs, schooling, etc. It also bring to our attention the huge number of invisible populations living in poverty – the very people who live with our trash.  Oh, these poor kids and women. The collection of bags originally started with a tote but the line has expanded into everything from makeup purses to laptop bags, even including some made from old billboard designs.

Well, who knows, I may start bringing this range in to Pure Tincture.  In the meantime, continue reading and before you throw away that plastic container/ bag, stop and think again.