Thanks for sharing. What a lovely purse and now a family heirloom. I checked out the link to Diamond 57. She is going to be very busy now after the article. My husband used to wear cowboy boots. Hummmm, I wonder if I saved any of them. Well, its a trip to the attic to go thru the many boxes of stuff that I've saved.

There is no recycle bin on Chrome OS! Chromebook is a cloud device that presumably you store your stuffs on the internet(using Google drive). By using Google drive(app with triangle shape icon), you will certainly find recycle bin.

Well, all I can say, trancegemini, is that there is no free lunch. One can focus, as the OP did, on the fact that recycling and/or diversion doesn't pencil out for many items (though it does for some) while ignoring the costs of building, maintaining, and mitigating landfills that may be leaching pollutants for at least several lifetimes, no matter how "good" modern landfill technology is or how "willing" impoverished populations are to accept the garbage. However, no matter what pathway "big business" chooses or is forced to take, it will have a cost that everyone will pay, either directly or indirectly. So, choose what you want "big business" to do: Sell only in bulk (tell consumers to bring their own containers)? Cease the use of plastic and glass and sell only in containers that biodegrade quickly? Cease all construction and resource extraction and use only materials already on hand? Come up with better technology for materials and/or disposal? Or? Every path has its price and problems, whether it is the cost of re-using materials or coming up with alternative materials and processes. Plus, consumer demand does generate the waste, so, yes, all of us consumers do own a share of the problem along with the businesses that create it, at our request. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that they are making a "massive" change, but it does make most people happy to "pitch in", no matter what it is, and feel they are making some contribution. A manifestation of that is that volunteer environmental clean-up projects around here are very popular and well-attended. After all, it was "we" (communally) who left that trash lying around. Don't forget that "big business" has to pay costs for disposal or diversion, too, so they can be as motivated as the "masses" when a process becomes too pricey. The delays in making improvements in waste center on the difficulty in finding viable alternatives for complex problems. (Though, it certainly is true that, over here at least, the favorite initial strategy of corporations seems to be to whine about EPA or other regulations and lobby to evade or overturn them. Nevertheless, fundamental anti-pollution laws have stayed in place and have even been improved to some extent.) At 61 years old, I have seen many environmental improvements on many fronts during my lifetime that were the result of legislation and, with that perspective, I remain hopeful. This despite having a rather depressing profession, being a restoration ecologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and looking at ecosystems broken beyond real repair every single day (that would be the vast majority of them here), not to mention superfund sites. Even so, things are better than they were!

I have to watch out for fruit flies, too. In the long harvest season, I always have baskets of fresh picked veggies on the counter, either from my gardens or other's. I've found that wrapping my individual tomatoes (for example) in newspaper or paper towels will protect them from fruitflies and over ripening. I have a couple of small jars filled with a solution of apple cider vinegar, water, and dish detergent to trap any fruitflies. Trap and release fruit flies, lololol. Don't do it, Alisande! Fruit flies are like plant vermin.....trap and release rats or cockroaches.