I'm doing more online and food shopping, but starving for social interaction as the Covid-19 pandemic enters its 13th month

RECYCLING: I have been spending a lot of time recycling cardboard boxes from all of the online shopping we've been doing since the Covid-19 pandemic started in March 2020, and I make sure to put out our garbage and recycling cans every Thursday evening for pickup the next day. 

 

The news media are silent 

on how all older Americans

are coping with the isolation 

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Have you seen those men's pants you can't let out because no extra material was provided?

Or those $99 men's shirts from UNTUCKit.com that are meant to be worn out, but that are much shorter with less material than a traditional shirt?

Who are the suckers who are paying more for less material? What a scam.

I can just imagine how the owners of UNTUCKit and the factories that make those pants are laughing all the way to the bank.

First, they charge an inflated price for a product with less material, then use all of the extra material that didn't go into those hundreds of thousands pants or shirts to make even more skimpy, overpriced products.

Random thoughts

I'm having these random thoughts after my son wanted to take a pair of pants to our local tailor that no longer fit after he gained weight.

I said, "Let me see those pants," and showed him there was no extra material in the waist, and just below it, to let out.

As for UNTUCKit.com, as soon as the business was formed, I laughed my head off at the oh-so-imaginative scam of over charging for a shirt that had more style but less material.

Yes. This retiree has a lot of time on his hands since the Covid-19 pandemic was declared 13 months ago, putting an end to my volunteering at Englewood Health, visits to the gym, eating out occasionally and traveling (our last few trips were to New Orleans, Alaska and Iceland).

PILING UP: We managed to clear a snowfall of more than 2 feet, even though our snow blower wouldn't start.

A tough winter

We quarantined during most of 2020 and cocooned during a tough winter, including a snowstorm of more than 2 feet.

And although spring is here, I am still not ready to return to the gym or dine in at our favorite restaurants.

I'm the only one in our family of four who has been fully vaccinated, and the Covid-19 headlines about virus variants scare me.

Food shopping

So, food shopping, cooking, posting on social media, online shopping, and watching TV or listening to WBGO, the jazz radio station in Newark, are pretty much all I have to keep busy.

It's not enough. I miss the social contact of volunteering at a busy hospital, and visiting patients who had open-heart surgery, as I did in September 2011.

My only form of exercise now is food shopping, and I count my steps on my smartphone. 

I can easily roll up 1 mile on my weekly visit to the Costco Wholesale warehouse in Teterboro or a half-mile at Whole Foods Market and H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry.

I also recycle all of the single-use plastic bags and plastic food packaging we accumulate at ShopRite, the supermarket chain that assures customers all of that plastic is recycled into material used to make community playgrounds. 

AmazonSmile.com

I've lost count of all the online orders I've placed at AmazonSmile.com (where a tiny portion of each purchase goes to a charity I designate); Bed Bath & Beyond (I browse clearance items frequently, like the spring floral tablecloth and 8 napkins that were just delivered); Costco.com, Target.com. and other websites.

We've been getting a few packages, including an occasional box of wine, every week, and sometimes every day.

And I've made several trips to the UPS Store to return items, and recycle Styrofoam and other packaging.

When I use my Amazon Prime credit card at Whole Foods Market in Paramus (the supermarket chain is owned by Amazon), I get 5% back I can use on AmazonSmile.com

And there are special sales of produce and other items for Amazon Prime members, plus another 10% off, throughout the organic and natural foods supermarket.

What about us?

Although I haven't tired of writing occasionally about how the pandemic has affected me and my family, I have pretty much been turned off by news media coverage of Covid-19.

I subscribe to The New York Times on Sundays, and the sections from February, March and so far in April, especially Opinion, have been piling up unread.

As I've gotten older, I've seen less and less about people like me who have reached retirement age and beyond.

When the pandemic started, older Americans were said to be the most vulnerable, especially if they had chronic bronchitis or a similar condition (I'm one of them).

Now, in the 13th month of the pandemic, all of the coverage seems to be focused on younger and in some cases, much younger people. 

Where the millions of plastic bags recycled at ShopRite go and what becomes of them

RECYCLED INTO WHAT? My cart at the ShopRite in Paramus, N.J., is nearly filled with plastic shopping bags that are stuffed with more bags and lots of plastic food wrapping and plastic film destined for a recycling plant in Elizabeth, N.J. 

PLASTIC BAG BAN: After Paramus banned single-use plastic bags, ShopRite, Whole Foods Market and other supermarkets in the borough began bagging food purchases in paper, above. ShopRite's paper bag contains 60% recycled content and is itself recyclable.

Materials collected at supermarkets

turned into community playgrounds

Editor's note: This post has been updated with ShopRite recycling statistics, and a photo of Costco's recycled plastic carton that prevents the breakage of 9 million eggs a year.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The massive recycling effort at the hundreds of ShopRite supermarkets in New Jersey and nearby states yields new community playgrounds.

You can learn about the many tons of plastic and cardboard ShopRites recycle in a 2-minute video on "sustainability" from the Wakefern Food Corp.

Wakefern is the retailers' cooperative that owns and operates 344 retail supermarkets (see a link to the video below).

Recycling them into new plastic bags doesn't make sense as more towns and cities ban those bags, and as alarms are raised over microplastics poisoning our food and water supply.

What are microplastics? Here are 2 paragraphs from "How to Eat Less Plastic," the June 2020 cover story in Consumer Reports magazine:

"Cracking open a brand new plastic bottle or tearing a wrapper off a sandwich releases fragments of plastic that we might end up ingesting.

"Reliable research now shows that tiny bits of plastic -- called microplastics -- are in our food, drinking water, the air we breathe, and, yes, inside our bodies."  

ShopRite statistics 

Here are some of the recycling statistics for Wakefern's Elizabeth, N. J., processing plant:

1. Recycled more than 2.6 million tons since the 1970s.
2. In 2019, recycling totals include 135,873 tons of cardboard, 4,667 tons of plastic, 428 tons of newspaper and 762 tons of office paper.
3. In 2019, the plant composted more than 11,000 tons of food waste, and donated more than 5,000 tons of food to food banks.

Can more be done?

Although ShopRite, Whole Foods, H Mart and other supermarkets in Paramus provide paper bags to shoppers who don't bring reusable ones for their purchases, Tous les Jours, the bakery concession inside the Korean supermarket on Route 17, charges 30 cents for each paper bag.

And Aldi supermarkets in New Jersey have never provided plastic or paper bags to customers, but you can purchase a reusable bag for 10 cents.

A LOT OF YOLKS: Costco Wholesale officials say cartons made from 100% recycled plastic prevent breakage, saving more than 9 million eggs a year from landfills.

Recycling at Costco

Sustainability programs at Costco Wholesale, a global retailer, also are impressive.

"In some cases, we've been able to eliminate plastic altogether," Sheri Flies, Costco vice president of global sustainability and compliance, wrote in the May 2020 Costco Connection magazine.

For example, Costco swapped plastic for paperboard in sheet-cake trays, removed plastic hangers in some clothes and replaced plastic bags with compostable ones.

"If we can't eliminate plastic, we try to use less of it, through redesign," Flies said. "We reduced our plastic packaging by 6 million pounds in 2019."

Another goal is to use recycled plastic in plastic packaging, "such as increasing the recycled content in our Kirkland Signature 16-ounce water bottles to 50% in the U.S."

When plastic makes sense

"Kirkland Signature egg cartons ... reduce food waste, also a priority for us," Flies said, adding:

"These plastic cartons prevent breakage, saving over 9 million eggs a year from landfills and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"They use 100% recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which makes them 40% lighter than pulp cartons.

"These lighter weight and sturdier cartons enable our shipper to pack 50% more cartons on a truck, reducing truck trips from the farms to our locations and therefore reducing carbon emissions."

Read: How To Eat Less Plastic

Watch: ShopRite's Recycling

 and Composting Programs 

Watch: Plastic Wars from FRONTLINE