clair098

Where: Outside of the Coop except during inclement weather when collection will be held inside the Coop Times: 2nd Wednesday of the month 3:45-6pm 4th Saturday of the month 1:45-4pm (Please try to come at least 15 minutes before the end of the shift.) New expanded plastic collection for Coop members only!  Please be ready to show your membership card.  New items collected: Plastic bags/wrapping/packaging from most Coop items (both food and non food items.) Plastic roll bags distributed by the Coop. Thin plastic film wrapping from items such as cheese, meat, toilet paper, tea boxes etc.  NO foil backed packaging is accepted at the moment. The regular TerraCycle collection is still available to Coop and non-Coop members! Ongoing community collection items: Toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, any brand and size. Baby food pouches and caps, any brand Energy bar wrappers (any brand but only energy bars) Brita and other similar water filters Plastic food storage zip loc bags, cl...

Photo credit: Jenna Spevack With the recent roll bag vote and the expanded TerraCycle collections happening at the Coop, plastic has had increased visibility among Coop members.  However, there’s one area where plastic chemicals are ubiquitously present yet mostly unseen within the walls of 782 Union. Where? Actually inside our food and then ultimately in our bodies.  To understand how plastic chemicals end up food and then in people, a basic lesson in polymer chemistry is needed.  Simplified, plastics are made up of long chains of plasticizer chemicals (a monomer is a plastic compound, which when strung together make up polymers that form the building blocks of plastic.)  Plastics of course have a wide variety of uses.  From hard, colored plastic to flexible, transparent cling film and other types of food packaging, plastics have brought a certain ease to many us living a modern life. Unfortunately popular plastic chemicals share two characteristics that’s a pr...