Monthly Archives: January 2008

Rats! Seems I Can’t Recycle My Ink Cartridges!

With my husband hunting for a new job, suddenly our printer is going through ink. We’ve been low for a long time, but we finally managed to use up a couple cartridges.

Come to find out that a lot of Canon ink cartridges aren’t recycleable. Some are, but not the ones we use.

I gather that the ones Office Depot recycles have to have the print head in them. I guess that’s something of a plus, that disposing of my cartridges is not disposing of a print head every time. But I still hate seeing the plastic go to waste.

I even checked an ink refill site, and no go there either. Not that it would have helped this time, since we needed the ink today. But it would be nice to know.

All this is making me really glad we don’t do a lot of printing most of the time. I find it simpler to order my prints on those rare occasions I need a photo printed, so my printing needs come out to pretty rare occasions. The printer is only about 2 years old, so we obviously have no plans to replace it just because the cartridges won’t recycle. But it’s a thought for next time.

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What to do About Plastic Grocery Bags?

More cities have been thinking about enacting plastic bag bans. So far as I’m concerned, this is an overall good thing. Plastic is cheap to make, and I hear its carbon footprint is actually better than that of paper, but the long term issues are a definite problem.

You see, they are only minimally recycleable.

You can see the bins at grocery stores for them. Seems like when I’ve taken plastic bags in the bins are always full, so there are definitely people doing this. What happens to these bags?

I read on Yahoo that they get made into lumber-like boards. That’s not a bad use, but very few actually make it that far, about 1%.

Best of course is to just not use them. I have a couple of canvas shopping bags that I adore… especially since I got them free from one place and another. I just have to get better about using them.

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There’s Nothing Like a Really Good Friend

I posted the other day about my husband losing his job due to layoffs. Obviously we’re quite frustrated with the situation, and we really, really don’t want to have to move. My inlaws are wonderful people, but we don’t see eye to eye at all politically. Even beyond the challenges of living in their house normally, I don’t want to be there in an election year….

But it’s been something seeing how good of friends we have. Right now my daughter is with a friend of mine, one I met because her daughter is friends with mine, even though they aren’t in the same kindergarten class. Her immediate reponse on hearing the news was to ask how she could help.

I told her number one thing is to keep an eye out for job leads.

Today and probably tomorrow she’s having my daughter over to her house for a few hours after school so that we have more quiet time to manage my husband’s job hunt. Tomorrow she’ll probably even have my son over, which will be his first time going to a non-relative’s house and staying without me. But she has a son just a bit older than him, so I think it will work out well.

She’s in much the same situation as I am, a stay at home mom. Not a lot of extra money. She is an absolutely wonderful friend, and I am so glad to have met her.