City Settles Marital Dispute: ELi’s Publisher Wins!

A marital dispute broke out this past weekend at the home of ELi’s Publisher (me) on East Lansing’s Sunset Lane. Police were not called, but the Department of Public Works was.

The dispute involved an attractive plastic shopping bag from Home Goods, located during a bout of spring cleaning. The bag, shown above, has been reused by our household, but now was discovered to have a tear in it, rendering it unusable.

I was about to throw it out in the trash when Aron Sousa, ELi’s lead astronomy reporter, told me to put it in East Lansing’s single-stream recycling. (Disclosure: Sousa is a major donor to ELi, although I try to avoid telling him how much he donates.)

Sousa, locally famous for discovering Burcham-Henge, made his claim that this bag can be put in our recycling cart based on the fact that the bag is stamped with a #5 plastic mark on the bottom and a note saying that it is “100% recyclable.”

“No way!” I replied with the vigor of a woman who is still a New Yorker even after living for thirty years in the Midwest. “Have you not read ELi’s reporting on recyclables, where ELi's Paige Filice and I have told readers over and over again that plastic bags, no matter what number they’re marked with, are not recyclable?!”

And still, he refused to yield. Thus, I was forced to write to Cathy DeShambo, Environmental Services Administrator at East Lansing’s Department of Public Works.

DeShambo answered this morning:

“You win. You are correct that this is ultimately defined as a plastic bag which makes it a no.”

DeShambo has previously explained for our readers that you should never put any plastic bags or plastic film of any kind in the single-stream recycling can, with one exception: “shredded paper must be enclosed in a clear plastic bag.”

The news of my win was rapidly conveyed to Sousa. Informed that I was planning to headline my win and asked for comment, he replied, “And yet you won’t let me write satire for ELi?”

He seems a little bitter. So you should probably read one of his articles, like his piece on the redwoods of East Lansing (he has since planted a Sequoia giganteum in our backyard), or my interview with him about his habit of planting zinnias, or this investigative piece we wrote together when ELi was young and so were we.

You may be interested in reading:

ELi on Earth: How Does EL’s Recycling Get Sorted, and What Can Go in My Cart?

Ask ELi: Sticky and Slippery Recycling Questions Answered

Is East Lansing’s Recycling Affected by China’s Refusal of Materials?

East Lansing to Offer Styrofoam Recycling