I already mentioned the unfortunate Styrofoam and Hershey bar incidents this week. Since I already had so much to tally, I decided to give my cupboards a good cleaning, finishing up some old plastic-wrapped foods this week and moving other packaged items into glass jars. So the number of items climbs again this week. Here’s the tally:

Non-recyclable items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• 4 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers (#4 plastic).
• 1 cap wrapper from a glass bottle of Big Paw hot Tuscan olive oil.
• 1 inside plastic bag from a box of McCann’s steel cut Irish oatmeal. I poured the rest of the oatmeal into a glass jar. From now on, I’ll buy all oatmeal and cereals in bulk.
• 1 Garofalo spaghetti wrapper. This is my last plastic package of pasta! From now on, I’ll buy all my pasta in bulk.
• 3 plastic bags from Cuisinart food processor attachments. These were attachments I didn’t even realize I had. Isn’t it nice to discover new things while cleaning?
• 1 plastic blister pack of stainless steel sink strainers. Yet another surprise in a kitchen drawer.
• 1 totally used up synthetic dish sponge. I have 2 more synthetic sponges left and then we’ll be switching to natural cellulose sponges.
• 1 plastic wrapper from a package of Scotch Brite scrubber sponges. See above.
• Plastic wrap from a 3-pack of Clearly Natural glycerin soap. We have 2 more plastic-wrapped bars of soap before all of our soap is plastic-free.
• 1 plastic package of Woodstock Farms natural ginger slices. These were sitting in the refrigerator for years. But apparently, candied ginger doesn’t go bad. We finished it up this week.
• 1 black Styrofoam tray and plastic wrapper from a Safeway Rancher’s Reserve NY strip steak. I put off eating this for a long time. I’m not eating commercially-raised beef anymore. And I debated whether or not to eat this. But I’d bought it months and months ago, and it seemed worse to waste the meat than to eat it thoughtfully, which is what I finally did this week.

Recyclable items purchased before the plastic project began:

• 1 plastic bag from a set of grill utensils (#4 plastic). At least I think that’s what they are. They must have come with the chimenea we received as a wedding gift almost 3 years ago! Apparently, I can recycle this at work in Daly City where they accept #4 plastic bags.

And that’s all the old stuff. Now for the new plastic waste.

• 1 Springhill teleme jack cheese wrapper.
• 1 Finlandia Turunmaa Finish Havarti wrapper.
• 1 dry jack cheese wrapper. Okay, no I didn’t eat 3 blocks of cheese this week! I purchased two of these to share with friends or co-workers and one of them lasted several weeks.
• 1 Whole Foods 365 Tater Puffs (aka tots) bag. Michael purchased this for the Napoleon Dynamite party and left me to finish them off. And no, you can’t have any! Get your own. I haven’t eaten anything all day!
• 1 Hershey Bar wrapper. I mentioned this on Friday. A desperate moment.
• 1 plastic cork from a bottle of Boissonneau Chateau Moulin de Ferrand Bordeaux Blanc. I have 5 more bottles to enjoy. Husch Vineyards sauvignon blanc is great, contains a natural cork stopper, and doesn’t have to travel as far to get to me. I think I’ll drink that when the Boissonneau is gone.
• A bit of plastic from around the stems of a bunch of organic bananas. I don’t understand the reason for this plastic. The non-organic bananas don’t seem to have it. What gives?
• 1 Styrofoam clamshell from a take-out sushi order at work. I mentioned this one on Friday too. Even though we specified cardboard to the order taker, the food arrived in Styrofoam. I just need to leave myself enough time to make a good lunch for myself each day and I won’t be tempted to order food when I get to work.
• 1 soy sauce packet from the sushi order. You didn’t expect me to eat it without soy sauce, did you? Yep. Shoulda planned ahead.

Oh, and who’s the cute creature with his eyes covered? That’s Gnu Moose, our latest adoptee. Michael found him lying in the street while out running and carried him all the way home. M didn’t want him to be traumatized by all the plastic waste, considering Gnu Moose was almost plastic waste himself this week. He is, after all, stuffed with plastic pellets.

And that, once again, is the plastic for the week. My bag of non-recyclable plastic is getting really heavy and bulgy. In a few weeks, I’ll have to start a new one. It’s just amazing how much plastic I still have in this house after 16 weeks of buying very little new stuff and recycling whatever I can.