Life, Death and Beyond

Filled bucket and liner

Saturday was the beginning of the ban in our town.  Sounds like it could be serious.  For some it was.  Those who need to carry their goods in a plastic bag when they leave the big stores are out of luck.   On Saturday plastic was no longer an option.  Arguments for paper or plastic will go on for as long as the arguers have breath.  That discussion is not the point of my thoughts.  It was, however, the trigger for looking at what I do with the still-legal produce bags from my local market.

While making breakfast, first of the Things I get to do today, I reach for the compost bucket--the final resting place for the egg shells.  The liner for my current bucket is a plastic bag in its second life time.  It feels pretty good to repurpose in this way (see post:  Love My Mayor), but revealing the full life cycle of these bags seems appropriate based on the recent momentous events in city hall.

Filled liner ready for visit to the compost

Compost bucket is full.  Liner (plastic bag) and its contents (kitchen scraps ready for their own next incarnation) go into the hen pen to the compost bin.  The bin is one of those big black, plastic, lidded contraptions sold by Metro over the last dozen or so years.  It reminds me of a giant version of the shiny black head-gear worn by an ominous villain who made sucking, raspy sounds when he breathed so I call it the "Darth Vader."

After the bag has given up the contents of its belly to Darth Vader, it can no longer go back to the kitchen. It is rinsed out at the rain barrel, checked for major holes and tied onto the fence by the path.

Plastic bag on its way to heaven.

Dozens of dogs and their owners, dog sitters, dog walkers, runaway dogs and random people use this path every day.  At times some have been a bit careless about picking up after the four-legged critters.  I put up a little sign to remind them that the dog, no matter how devoted to them, cannot clean up after itself, and I provide these third-time-around plastic bags for the job in case they forgot their own.  For a final resting place and an afterlife, is that heaven or hell?