The Good, The Bad, and the Really, Really, Ugly

The good: 

Mr. GV brought home a huge stack of journals, mail, and other papers from his mailbox at work.  Included in the assortment were the course materials for a certificate program he took 15 years ago.  He doesn't need the materials anymore, and I imagine with the way medicine moves they are out of date anyway. 

From this notebook I salvaged:

-one huge 3-ring binder (will probably offer up on Freecycle, along with a couple others)

-21 dividers that can be reused or if no one wants them I will cut off the tab and use for scrap paper for me/art paper for my nephew

-322 sheets of paper that are only printed on one side so will go next to my printer to be reused for just about everything.  (I just printed out my 2011 mortgage interest statement on a used piece of paper.  I don't think my accountant is going to mind!) 

-And best of all, only 3 sheets of paper are going into the recycling bin, because they were printed on both sides.  

 

 The bad:

Below you see the stack of professional journals, along with a few paper envelopes and medical updates that are sent to Mr. GV at work.  He, along with (dare I say it?) the bulk of medical professionals, never look at these journals.  In my opinion, these particular ones are more like magazines.  They contain ads every few pages (54 total pages in one, 27 which are ads, and 95/44 in a second one, if you include half-page ads with text on the same page.) Most people in Mr. GV's department throw them into the trash.  I told him today if he wanted to let his coworkers know, I would be happy to recycle their copies too. 

 The ugly: 

The plastic bag that comes with almost every single "journal."  This is ridiculous.  Sometimes they are including a second supplement with the first, but the majority are ads for more products! 

I have both emailed and sent back response cards asking to please take Mr. GV off their mailing list, but one company in particular simply will not do it.

I have looked online and cannot find a definitive answer as to whether or not this plastic can be recycled, and there is no recycle number on the bags.  So for now, I will be throwing this in the trash, into the landfill, where it will pollute this planet for as long as any of us can fathom.  Remember---plastic never actually goes away.  It will eventually break down into smaller particles, but it's never actually "gone." 

And so, even though I'm happy to reuse and recycle, what I'd most like to have done here is REFUSE.  And I can't, and that makes this a definite "ugly."