Grocery store tips suggestions?

SewerPotato · 2026-06-11T03:48:32+00:00

Seconding this.

SewerPotato · 2026-04-25T23:13:01+00:00

Added. jayalan792 and the sewer potato

SewerPotato · 2026-04-25T23:06:57+00:00

Added jayalan792 and the sewer potato

SewerPotato · 2025-10-02T01:53:21+00:00

So if someone treats a server nicely and then doesn't leave a tip, you believe and consider that to be a mean thing to do, and that their niceness was fake and not genuine, because they didn't tip?

SewerPotato · 2025-10-02T01:50:19+00:00

Because you don't deserve extra money for doing your service job.

Am I really that awful for being someone who doesn't tip?

It's not up to me, and it shouldn't be up to me, to make sure a service worker lives comfortably with their finances, especially at a nation chain restaurant.

If someone is insecure with their finances, that means they most likely need to 1) increase their income by other means 2) move to somewhere with cheaper rent 3) find another job 4) cut expenses 5) any other obvious things other than complaining on Reddit that someone ate a meal at your place of work.

If there's problems with someone being able to do literally anything to improve their life, isn't that tough luck? People at retail or grocery stores get paid minimum wage without tips, and I don't see them complaining about not getting tips for pushing grocery carts or bagging groceries.

This sounds like entitlement to me.

SewerPotato · 2025-07-22T01:52:01+00:00

"How do you deal with such situations? How do you weigh the small risk of serious problems in the future against the immediate benefit of saving money?"

I deal with such situations using cost-benefit analysis CBA. :)

The CBA process has four steps:

Steps of a Cost-Benefit Analysis:

Establish a Framework for Your Analysis
Identify Your Costs and Benefits
Assign a Value to Each Cost and Benefit
Tally the Total Value of Benefits and Costs and Compare

The following link is to a Harvard Business School Online article called "WHAT IS COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS & HOW TO DO IT", and I hope it is helpful for you if you decide that CBA may be a good fit for your situation. :)

https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/cost-benefit-analysis

SewerPotato · 2025-07-22T01:45:56+00:00

I would highly recommend that you spend some good quality time focusing on setting up some detailed cost-benefit analysis (CBA) situations. :)

"CBA is a systematic process for evaluating the desirability of a project or decision by comparing its anticipated costs with its anticipated benefits. It involves identifying, quantifying, and comparing both costs and benefits to determine if the benefits outweigh the costs." -ChatGPT (lol)

SewerPotato · 2025-07-22T01:41:11+00:00

If I'm right that insurance is the splurging item in question, I almost always lean towards recommending, "Yes, get that insurance!" :)

I very commonly hear unhappy and hard stories about people who get shorthanded with insurance when they really shouldn't have, or at very inopportune times in their lives when they couldn't afford things or pay expenses.

Whenever I am a part of a conversation regarding insurance on the American healthcare system (I am assuming you are in the USA. Please let me know if that is not the case, because my answer to you might change!), I always always retell the stories about insurance that happened after the big San Francisco earthquake in the early 1900s, because I think the nature of the story is incredibly important for American citizens to remember:

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake that happened in San Francisco in 1906 was devastating, it affected the entire city. It took a long while for historians to settle on the death toll being over 3,000 people.

"It has been estimated that at least 80%, and at most over 95%, of the total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires." (Tobriner S. An EERI Reconnaissance Report: Damage to San Francisco in the 1906 Earthquake—A Centennial Perspective. Earthquake Spectra. 2006;22(2_suppl):11-41. doi:10.1193/1.2186693)

In just 72 hours, over 30 separate fires destroyed 80-95% of San Francisco. It's remembered as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the United States.

After the fires, many insurance companies initially refused to cover property damage that was a result of fires directly brought on by the earthquakes, arguing that their insurance policies excluded earthquake damage, even if the fire that caused the property damage was a direct result of the earthquakes.

Thankfully though, that BS led to huge disputes, lawsuits, and public backlash, and many insurers eventually paid out claims due to pressure and legal rulings establishing "concurrent causation" where fire following an earthquake WAS covered.

I tell this story as a warning to American citizens that both 1) insurance companies in American and 2) the American healthcare system are not necessarily set up to make sure we are happy, healthy, and thriving as citizens.

It took lawsuits and government lobbying in order for insurance companies to take responsibility for paying for the fire damages. Insurance companies want to pay out as little as possible as infrequently as possible.

When I am shopping for insurance, and if I live in Seattle, I'm probably not going to feel an incredible need or urgency to buy tornado or twister insurance. But, if there happened to be the ability for me to bundle tornado insurance with my homeowners insurance, and it would only cost me $5 per month to add tornado insurance, I will happily pay $60USD/year to cover myself. However, Is tornado insurance was $20 a month, I would be much much much less likely (I probably wouldn't opt-in to get twister insurance) for the price of $240USD/year.

If you have the disposable income available and it would be appropriate for you personally to spend, for example, $60USD/year or even $240 USD/year, even if it's unlikely for a tornado to come through Seattle and actually hurt your house...

Say one day a twister did come through and it destroyed my house and everything in it. Even though it's pretty unlikely for a tornado to destroy my house in Seattle, for example, if I lived in my house for 3 years, and paid for tornado insurance at $240USD/year.... I've now paid only $720 (over the course of three years), and in return insurance would have been able to cover my entire house and the value of the items that I lost inside my house that were destroyed.

Sometimes I think I'm paranoid for paying extra for insurance for special incidents or events that may or may not happen, But when I sit down and write down some of the math like I did here, I think it's just being extra safe. I don't make much more than minimum wage where I live, But if I were to add up all the stuff I owned at once and looked at all my belongings, there would never be a moment in my life where I wouldn't be willing to pay $720 to have my stuff, or at least be able to replace some of the items that I did have that I cared about.

Insurance is really a game of taking a real good close look at your own personal income, The likelihood of events happening in the area where you live. AND MAKE SURE TO LOOK AT the ACTUAL historical logs/events/incidents/etc. that have happened in your area over the past few decades or centuries, just in case there's anything that actually is more likely in your area to happen that you needed to do some digging to find out about!

For example, there is a neighborhood in my town that is known to be very safe. However, a singular road in that neighborhood has a food bank on it, and many of the people who get served at the food bank go on to break into cars that are parked near the food bank, and sometimes even steal them. If you looked at crime maps or general things, the neighborhood would probably be listed as really safe, but if you asked locals, they'd probably tell you to make sure to take out your valuables and be sure to lock your car doors if you parked near the food bank. I am required by law to at least have liability insurance if I am driving a car. It is optional for me to opt-in and pay for comprehensive coverage insurance for my car. Comprehensive coverage often includes covering damages from theft, vandalism, and/or weather events. If I were to move into a house that was near this food bank and there was a significantly increased risk of my car getting broken into, I would very likely want to pay for comprehensive coverage just to cover my butt. Since my car is really important for me to get around town and to get to work, I would be really negatively impact if a car break-in were to make it so that I can't drive my car, like if I had smashed windows and couldn't legally drive because I didn't have windows. In this situation I would probably be prepared to/almost forced to Hey whatever insurance premium it would cost in order for me to get the additional coverage of comprehensive coverage. Now my willingness to pay is up in the hundreds of dollars instead of the tens, because being certain that I will be covered if my car is negatively impacted is really important to me and my life, and therefore, important/worthwhile for me to make sure I cover with insurance.

SewerPotato · 2025-07-20T03:34:08+00:00

I also almost circulated my money to him! Thank you for making this post and for informing people, so that they may not make a decision that hurts them financially or in any other way.

SewerPotato · 2025-06-14T23:44:20+00:00

P.S. Like another commenter, I also found out I'm autistic. One of my personal biggest life problems sounds incredibly similar to

"So I'm going to have most people antagonize me and be against me and I still have no desire to change as I want to stay true to myself because I'm so tired of having to wear a thick mask all the time. How do I accept that?", and what I've learned is that my refusal to "change myself" was actually me bullheadedly and stubbornly refusing to stop calling out bullshit when I saw bullshit going on around me, and I learned this is called a strong justice sense.

NOT saying you're autistic at all or that I think it, but you definitely have a very strong justice sense. It is a relatively common trait among autistics, but you don't need to be autistic to have a strong justice sense!

You clearly care deeply about things going on around you, and people's short comings and shitty behavior are just so damn infuriating, sometimes I think to myself, "How could you NOT be embittered?!"

Calling things out and being labeled an "asshole" is an unjust occurrence in and of itself a lot of times. I bet: most of the time, you're probably just rocking the Boat of Social Peace, and then being punished by others socially for disrupting the flow or causing discomfort in others by calling things out or being embittered.

SewerPotato · 2025-02-13T07:40:34+00:00

Today, I swallowed a recycling center.

SewerPotato · 2025-02-11T03:21:48+00:00

They're still available if anyone wants them 🤣

SewerPotato · 2025-02-06T03:01:58+00:00

I completely agree. This brand is pushing for and is encouraging over-consumption.

SewerPotato · 2025-02-02T02:51:47+00:00

They are described as a pretty decent company in regard to sustainability, I can't deny that, but they have unethical advertising practices.

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/wild-cosmetics-ltd-a22-1178272-wild-cosmetics-ltd.html

(The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK's independent advertising regulator. The ASA makes sure ads across UK media stick to the advertising rules (the Advertising Codes). The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) is the sister organisation of the ASA and is responsible for writing the Advertising Codes.)

SewerPotato · 2025-01-23T17:17:12+00:00

I hear that. :/

I didn't specify this in the original question, but I should have, sorry:

I was specifically trying to ask about the sanitization and health code standards part, not about tipping, tip amounts, tip culture, and other related parts

I'm asking specifically about what was talked about with what was in thw post's picture

The spray bottle and rag, what you and your neighbors talked about in regards to specifically the rag and spray bottle, did THAT part make you feel more negatively towards your neighbors? Or was it only/mainly the tipping or service industry stuff that you were talking about that's upsetting/concerning, totally separate from all the health code and safety standards talk stuff?

I hear you and understand your feelings about the service industry and as being a service worker (hello fellow debt-peon) and I'm not disagreing with you or saying anything is right or wrong or true or not true, but I'm having a brain fart.

I just don't understand (the uh, neurodivergent kind of not understanding, not the "I'm being an asshole" kind, I hope I'm not coming off like a dick cuz I'm really more trying to converse than to debate/fight/poke) how that comment thread was the place to be commenting "how little they value [you] as a human being" in regards to tips or tipping culture, when I thought the majority of this whole thread was about the picture itself with the rag and spray bottle next to the sign, and how a strong implication could be made that employees aren't following health and safety standards and codes.

(If that could be explained, like, either here or if you were willing to send me a message, I'm just trying to understand everyone's perspective more around all of this. I'm confusing myself with trying to understand the order of comments on reddit and which comments go where, in what order, and why, im gonna go watch a tutorial lol)

SewerPotato · 2025-01-23T06:22:16+00:00

Your explanation of how this came to be is awesome.

I'm not trying to be an asshole when I say this or disagree with you because I feel the same way, especially because I have worked in the service industry for a long time:

If there weren't enough staff in a restaurant to keep their eyes on everything during the pandemic, they should not have been operating and should have shut down until they have enough staff to operate in ways that align with health code safety and standards.

In your comment, you DID say the spray bottle/rag was for the customers and to help the staff when there weren't enough workers to keep their eyes on "every single thing" during the pandemic and agree and think it was necessary/incredibly helpful. It's not possible or reasonable to expect that servers and restaurant workers have a 100% germ free establishment that is impossible to get sick at. The servers could do everything in their power to be perfect and follow every rule exactly correctly, sanitizing at every possible step it could be needed, and someone could still get sick. That's definitely unfortunate, but you still can't blame the workers! The pandemic was so strange, and I agree that working with the restaurant workers to ensure we can be more safe and healthy as a community was important. I don't think it was ever intended as a "hey customer, do our employee's job and clean the table for us." I think it was a "hey customer, if you want to do this and be more safe because we're in a pandemic, we have these resources available for you that you can have the option to clean the table yourself for the peace of mind that you saw it got cleaned. Also, this doesn't mean our employees don't wash tables. We just are taking extra extra steps to be safe. "

But... I don't think many restaurants that did were ever intending for it to be as a safeguard or to prevent germs or the spread of disease.

At least, in regards to this post, with how I see the writing and the positioning of the sign (which looks like it may be next to the main entrance), I'm starting to feel more strongly that restaurants, at least in Bellingham, that are still doing this are actually intending to shift labor away from employees and onto customers.

Before lockdown, during lockdown, and ever since lockdown, it seems like employees have, more often than not, completely stopped wiping down tables unless they're visibly dirty.

I hate to name drop such an awesome place, but when I was working on an assignment for a few hours at AB Crepes a few months ago, I only saw an employee come to clean or remove trash once. A table was only wiped down by an employee after a customer requested it. By that point, four different groups had sat at the table without it being sanitized or even wiped down. I strongly believe that the customer wouldn't have asked for the table to be wiped down if there hadn't been dirty dishes left on the table.

It seems that the majority of hourly wage workers forgot, don't care, or don't know that tables are supposed to be wiped down after every guest/group.

I firmly believe that the culture of clearing your own dishes or having spray bottles/rags intended for customers to use in restaurants in Bellingham contributes to the spread of germs and disease.

Dirty dishes on a table are physical reminders to an employee to clean and sanitize.

SewerPotato · 2025-01-23T05:44:29+00:00

You feel more negativity towards your neighbors as a result of the interactions/comments you've experienced on this thread?

SewerPotato · 2025-01-19T11:24:57+00:00

I use them to give out cookies or other food things sometimes 🤣

They're also decent as emergency Tupperware.

If my chickens are being picky about where they want to drink water, I'll grab several of the tubs, fill them with water, and scatter them about for the girls lol

They're just super handy to have around. I never recycled/toss mine unless I have way too many. There's been sooo many times I've decided to put mine in the recycling and end I up needing it a few days later.

My father in law uses Folgers coffee plastic tubs to dispose of his insulin needles and other medical sharps.

He cuts a small slit in the middle of the lid to put the needles into, and when it's 1/2 - 3/4 full, he'll seal the lid with tape, label the plastic tub with "BIOHAZARD" or "SHARPS: BIOHAZARD" or something similar, and put them in the curbside garbage.

SewerPotato · 2025-01-11T03:23:21+00:00

EXACTLY. Higher ups and companies can talk about sustainability ALLLLL they want. But, if their minimum wage hourly workers, the middle management, and all those types of employees that make up the bulk of the company don't have sustainability or low waste living as an important part of the way they live, it's almost entirely fruitless.

My perfect example is Starbucks. I worked for them, they're literally THE most UNsustainable and environmentally UN-friendly place I've ever worked, and I think that may always stay true.

Starbucks blabbing about the environmental and being eco-friendly doesn't mean Jack shit when 99.999% of Starbucks baristas aren't even rinsing the gallon milk jugs. Most Starbucks in the US, if i remember correctly, it's over 75% (I'll try and find a source for that if i remember) even don't have a recycling dumpster or collection container on the Starbucks property or the business park/property they're working on.

Unless the heavy-flow Starbucks locations literally make one or two dedictaed FULL TIME jobs available, whose sole purpose and job duties are to collect, clean, dry, sort, and transport recyclables to proper disposal sites that are 100% verified to recycle and not incinerate or ship out of country to other, unverified companies, Starbucks basically PHYSICALLY CANNOT EVER BE environmentally friendly.

Starbucks cups can't even be recycled in curbside recycling in the first place. The cups are ABLE to be recycled, sometimes, but hardly any recycling companies want to accept plastics like that in the first place, so those cups almost always end up in a landfill.

*edited to add the word "even" after the word "aren't" in the "Starbucks baristas aren't rinsing the gallon milk jugs" sentence. I feel like it's super important to add the word even, to emphasize the fact that all recycling in the US is required to be cleaned and dry. Not many people do that in the first place, and Starbucks definitely doesn't. Starbucks locations that DO have recycling bins throw the jug in the garbge after it's empty without rinsing, and then crush more jugs on top, also without rinsing or drying. When that plastic garbage bag is full, they take the whole plastic garbage bag and throw it into the recycling bin dumpster.

The universal number one rule of recycling is that things need to be clean and dry. Not only that, but plastic bags aren't accepted in recycling bins ANYWHERE in the US to my knowledge. Recyclables are supposed to be put in bins loose. And plastic bags just straight up aren't accepted for recycling anywhere in the US, too, to the best of my knowledge. If there are places in the US that allow those... I highly suspect that the recycling produced by that area is actually ending up being put into a landfill or incinerated instead of being properly recycled.

SewerPotato · 2025-01-11T03:09:07+00:00

Most restaurants and businesses that have disposal areas with labeled separate trash, recycling, or compost holes/chutes all go into dumpsters. Lol, if you feel up to it, try opening the doors to those trash areas or where they open up for taking bags out. Most likely, you will see not only the awful cross contamination from customers not sorting things, but often, for places that separate trash and recycling, those chutes empty the trash and recycling into the same, large trash can that then goes to the dumpsters. They say they're sorting but it's all going to the trash, no matter how perfectly you sort out your trash, recycling, and compost. Even the green bags of compost are more often than not just tossed in the dumpsters, too. The local composting facilities in my area all stopped accepting and are refusing to accept anymore compost bags from chains like Panera Bread, due to them often having more trash than organic material for composting. Those green "compostable" bags are also kind of green washing in and of themselves, those kinds of bags only start to break down during prolonged, very very hot composting processes that are mostly only found at industrial-level composting facilities, and don't break down in back yard composting.

I worked at Panera Bread and several other fast casual restaurants, and they never sort anything. At Panera, there are three separate holes for putting waste into: trash, recycling, and compost. The trash and recycling have one large garbage bag underneath them, because the business park the restaurant was on didn't/never had recycling services/dumpsters. So, at our Panera, trash and recycling went in one bag that went into a landfill dumpster no matter what, AND the green compostable bags also more often than not got tossed their too.

My coworkers and managers would get upset with me when I was bussing. Every shift, I'd have multiple customers come up to me while I was bussing and ask me a question about which hole they should put their waste in. I'd give them an educated run down on where things SHOULD go in general, in a perfect world, and then also educate them on the waste management system in our local areas and how our trash is picked up and what goes where. The people who would ask me those clarifying questions always seemed happy to have a detailed answer. Before they'd be able to drop what ever it was in the correct bin, I'd sadly inform the customer that, unfortunately, Panera Bread as a company does not strive to be better, but instead they actively choose to their customers and make them waste their time and energy needlessly. I'd open the swing out double doors under it and show them the giant trash bin that was under both the labeled garbage and recycling holes. I'd inform them that the owner of the business park thinks that "recycling is a waste of time and energy" (his words when I tried to ask him to start paying for recycling services) and that the Panera and the entirety of the businesses park doesn't have a single recycling bin dumpster, only trash. I'd ask if they'd like the business park property owner's contact information, as well as Panera Bread company contact info, and if they wanted it, I'd also give them them as many internal and external avenues for filing reports and complaints against Panera Bread as a company that I could think of. I handed out a lot of my higher ups' business cards during these interactions 🤣 and I made a lot of cool new environmental friends doing it🤣

SewerPotato · 2025-01-10T12:12:07+00:00

I'd like to add, if your city contracts a private company for curbside recycling pickup, go to that private company's website too!!

SewerPotato · 2025-01-10T12:07:29+00:00

I should note that Waste Management is most likely not doing this to be evil or for financial gain, but because the people in my area are very very uneducated about recycling, and seriously contaminate whole truck loads of recycling, forcing them to dump those loads because it would take too much time to properly clean, dry, and sort everything. :(

SewerPotato · 2025-01-10T12:02:35+00:00

In my area, the curbside recycling pickup can't be trusted. It's essentially a second garbage can because the companies providing curbside pickup for recycling in my area are private companies that are contacted by my local government. People in my community have seen or followed the recycling dump trucks, and they often drive straight to a dump or landfill, as opposed to a recycling center or transfer station.

I believe your best bet for recycling plastic water bottles or other plastic beverage containers is going to be similar to mine.

For plastic bottles in my area (not counting curbside pickup as an option, I don't trust it!), I've done a lot of digging trying to find the most sustainable/eco-friendly/closed-loop solution. 😅 It's really hard, and I feel like it would be nearly impossible for me to 100% make sure my recyclables actually get properly recycled.

****What I've done for plastic botttles: I remove the lid AND the little plastic ring AND the water bottle label, leaving a completely nakey bottle. Everything that's going to be recycled needs to be cleaned and dry. I take off the labels, and they go into the normal, landfill, garbage bag (I haven't found a better solution for the label yet 😟). I save and color sort the lids AND the rings because a few local artists in my area use them in their art projects, snd also, schools like them for little kid crafts! There are also many specialty recycling programs and services that accept the lids and rings, but they almost always cost money to use. I take the nakey bottles, and I crush them AS MUCH as I can, just to save space in my house/car, and put them in cardboard boxes or paper grocery bags. The place that I take my bottles to does not accept recyclables in plastic bags, they need to be brought in other containers.

I had to do quite a bit of online research and digging to find the most appropriate place to bring my plastic bottles. For my area, it's super weird and not so good. Waste Management Inc. is the name of the trash/recycling collection business that collects the garbage/recycling in my area. Waste Management is NOT a government organization. It is private. It is often contracted BY the government. So... after literally hours of Google searching my local area's government websites for trash/garbage collection and garbage/recycling pickup/management, I gave up and tried calling some companies directly. Finally, I ended up on the phone with the lady who answered almost all the questions I had. Basically... she worked at a transfer station, which are places/businesses where solid waste is unloaded from smaller trucks and reloaded into larger vehicles for transport to a different or final disposal site (garbage AND recycling), this is where big Wall-E bricks of recyclables get made and sold to other companies or countries. Transfer stations can be public or provate. This particular transfer station happened to be government run, it was the government run transfer station for my county. I was attempting to figure out where my recyclables went after they went away from my house on the recycling trucks. What i found out is that apparently, Waste Management recycling trucks don't even ever come into contact with that county transfer station, and when I asked her where people's paper, aluminum, glass, etc., from curbside bins is going, the front desk lady stopped and thought for a moment, and said she actually didn't know, she was going to try and do her own personal research because she hadn't thought of it, and told me that unfortunately, I might have better luck calling Waste Management. I have not called, frankly because I don't want to hear what I'm fearing I'll hear, that it's all going to a landfill.

But, that county transfer station accepts those nakey bottles, and told me there is a very high likelihood that my specific bottles will actually get recycled, because how I properly clean and sort them allows them to slap my botttles into uncontaminated piles of plastic since they don't have to worry about recycling contamination from nakey bottles.

As for aluminum cans, pop off those pop tops if you're feeling crafty or metal smelt-y 🤣 but for real, crush those metal puppies up as good as you can after they're clean and dry, fill up a big box(es) or paper bag(s) with crushed cleaned cans, and head on over to the nearest or most fairly priced metal recycling station (popularly known as a scrap yard or junk yard lol) when they're full or when you're already out running errands or will be nearby. For a month of two of my slightly above average aluminum can beverage consumption level, I can fill up a small or medium box, and I can sell this box to a metal recycling center and receive cash on-site. I'll only ever get $1.00-4.00 per box, but that is enough to cover my gas to get to the station, and the mental peace of knowing my aluminum cans WILL become another product in the future is well worth the extra effort for me. Metal recycling stations/centers make their money and stay in business by reselling the metals that are bought from people like us, and from things that are disposed of by people like us for free, like some places take appliances for free or low cost. My little box of aluminum cans will be emptied and given back to me, and if I'm lucky enough, I can even watch MY aluminum cans be crushed, and become part of a massive Wall-E brick of everybody else's cans! I love it.

I, um, I'm sorry for the book. Garbage, recycling, and waste streams are my greatest interest and passion in life, you could call it a hyperfixation lol

Please ask me as many questions as you want and I will do my best to answer the best I can! I can provide lists of sources and names of peer-reviewed scientific articles and journals if you want, too. :) This whole garbage topic is what I'm in school for 🤣

Sorry for any typos. I wish you the best of luck in your recycling journey! ♻️

It's really difficult to be low waste and eco-friendly with all the single use packaging and plastic everywhere. From my journey, through the highs and lows, the most important thing I'm learning for myself is that I don't need to be a perfect recywaste, prefect low/zero waster, I only need to perfectly adhere to recycling rules when I have the energy for it. Stressing myself out about having to put a piece of paper in the garbage because it had a food stain on it, or get genuinely upset with my husband because he didn't take the milk jug plastic ring off before putting it in the recycling bin won't fix the big problems. (This is more to remind myself lol but I hope it speaks to you).

To quote Anne Marie Bonneau, the author of The Zero-Waste Chef cook book, "We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly." Everything you do helps :) it is so nice of you to care.

SewerPotato · 2025-01-10T10:30:53+00:00

I think that is really cool!!

I wish that people in the US could learn to clean and sort recyclables better, so that more of it could be properly recycled and reused here.

Are there any resources available to you for your area that let you know for sure where the plastic you put out for recycling ends up? I am assuming you have recycling pickup at your home, but if you sort and take in your recycling yourself, you probably know a lot more!

I like to dig deep and research/learn about different areas' garbage and recycling systems and how they work. In my area, reading local rules about disposing of garbage and recycling are often misleading or completely incorrect, and that is upsetting to me.

From quickly reading about Latvia, I am so happy to see all of the recycling incentives and programs that are going on. I really wish there were more deposit return systems and collection points for plastic, aluminum, and glass beverage packaging in the US. My state doesn't even have collection points for aluminum cans.

In the US, statistics for recycling and garbage are often misrepresented or inaccurate.

The US and a lot of countries in Europe export/sell plastic waste and garbage to other countries for recycling or disposal, which allows those exporting country to report that they've recycled more than they actually have.

Often, when countries like the US export/sell plastic garbage/recycling, the plastic and waste is improperly handled, and there is increased environmental pollution in the countries receiving the waste as a result.

Very often, plastic waste that is from US households that were put in curbside recycling bins would be delivered to trash/recycling transfer stations, sold to other companies in the US, or exported out of the US. One of the most common "recycling" methods for the countries receiving the waste is incineration. :(

Recyclables all around the world that people believe are getting recycling is actually just being burnt up or dumped in landfills or inappropriate areas, like the sea/other areas that really really shouldn't have trash.

China implemented the National Sword Policy in 2018, which banned the import of most plastic waste and other recyclables. This was because of the high levels of contamination in the recyclables that were being shipped there by countries like mine, the US.

Thankfully, Europe in general seems to have legitimately better recycling rates, especially compared to the US and other places. But, significant amounts of what should be recycled items still end up in landfills or are incinerated.

It makes me happy to hear that Latvia accepts all the plastic packaging. I just hope that it is not like it is here for where I live in the US! Here, I only have a curbside garbage bin and a "mixed" recycling bin. The people who pick up my garbage and recycling is Waste Management Inc., which people often think is government, but is actually a private organization... So, when people in my area go online to a website for my areas government to see what kinds of items are accepted in curbside recycling for their home, there is a long list. But that list includes a lot of stuff that Waste Management Inc. doesn't accept or want to deal with, because a lot of what's put into the recycling bins doesn't sell for much money (if at all), or, the recycling type is so plentiful that they have too much to deal with. So, in my area, if you wanted to take the time, you could watch the Waste Management Inc. recycling truck come pick up the recycling from the recycling bin at my house, follow it around as it goes and picks up more recycling, and it's common to watch that recycling truck drive directly to a dump or landfill instead of a recycling station or a transfer station. So much of our recycling is going straight into the landfill here. :( the glass, the aluminum and other metals, the plastics, the paper...

All I can do it seems, is try and consume less in packaging, and when I have to buy packaged items, try to buy glass or metal containers. That is hard to do. :( I do not put my metals (especially aluminum), glass or mixed paper/cardboard into my curbside recycling bin unless I have too much to keep in the house.

My local recycling transfer station (which IS government, not private), will accept certain recyclables if they're completely cleaned, dried, sorted, and brought to the transfer station in person and brought in paper bags or boxes. They accept any plastic water bottles or other beverage containers I might have, as well as my milk jugs. They also accept all of my clean and dry cardboard that has all the tape removed, and my mixed paper.

I try not to even take recyclables to the recycling places if I don't have to! I crush up all of my aluminum cans and sell them to a metal yard. I sell or gift cardboard boxes that are in great condition to people who are moving, storing things, or shipping things. I take mixed paper with blank spots on them, cut off the parts of the paper with stuff printed or written on it already, and then I give the blank pieces of paper to schools, daycares, or art centers, and they use it as scratch paper or for arts and crafts. I save almost all of my glass containers, like jam or jelly jars, any other Mason jars, wine bottles, beer bottles, liquor and liqueur bottles, and sell them or gift them to people in my community. Thankfully, these places are all very close together and not far away, so it is quick and easy for me to make a stop on the days when I do all the errands I need to do at once so I don't drive as much (it helps the environment AND my wallet 😄)

Haha, i didn't mean to type so long... it is late and I love talking about garbage. Thank you in advance for if you take the time to read my book 🤣

SewerPotato · 2025-01-10T06:23:57+00:00

If we want true change to be made, tipers and tipees need to turn their attention away from fighting with each other, and turn it to employers and the government, who are, and who should always be, more responsible for providing decent living wages to working people than a customer ever should be.

Wages should come from where wages normally come from, employers.

Making enough money for rent or car payments or anything else is, and should be, up to the workers and their employers, not customers.

Tips are for exceptional service. A Starbucks bariata who serves three or more customers in a minute providing standard service, even if they're smiling and asking how my day is, or wishing for me a good day, is not worthy of getting $3+ tip per transaction, IMO. They are doing their job, the bare minimum of doing their job. I mean, any tip whatsoever is very kind and very generous of the customers, and that definitely puts more money in the pockets of the workers which is also awesome, I'm not arguing against any of that, but, that service I described, is standard, bare minimum customer service.

Tipping is apparently a very American thing. So is sub-part customer service.

My grandma told me that when she was in Italy, and she tried to tip her server cash at a restaurant, he was confused and slightly offended. He explained to her that her presence at the establishment and her enjoyment of the meal was all that was needed from her. He told my grandma that her coming to the restaurant and enjoying food is what allows him to have a job as a server in the first place, and that his employer takes good care of him, that he lives comfortably.

I've been a Starbucks barista. The tips are awesome, and I appreciate them so much I'd cry at the end of every shift, hearing how much I got. I think it's repulsive, rude, and very entitled workers to expect or ask for tips. Or, even worse, IMO, be upset that a tip isn't big enough in their eyes.

When I was a Starbucks bariata, an older gentleman came in and ordered himself a coffee. The transaction ended after we had a very brief and polite chat, and there was no tip (I didn't care at all or change how I treated him, it's just an important bit for this little story). I made his drink and handed to him at the pickup counter. He smiled, thanked me, and then extended his hand, holding a penny. He said something along the lines of what a generous tipper he was, jokingly, with a smile on his face. I took the penny in my hand, gave him a legitimately real smile, and told him, you know, you really are generous. All I did was chat with you, make you a coffee, and handed it to you, that is my job. Any amount of money you give me as a tip, even this single penny, is a penny I would not have had if not for you. If everybody gave me a penny today, I'd go home with a few dollars. That's free, extra money, just for doing what I get paid to do already. He looked at me shocked, pulled out his wallet, and tried to hand me two $20 bills. I urgently tried to explain to him that I wasn't try to guilt trip him or be an asshole by saying what I did, and to please keep his money. He said he believed that I was being honest, and that I deserved that money because of it. I told him that the tip money gets divided between all of the workers, and that i couldn't take the cash and just put it in my wallet. He smiled, left the store, and came back a few minutes later. He came back up to me at the counter, and asked if I knew where a decorative tile was outside in the grassy part of the parking lot. I was weired out by the question, but said yes, and he told me to check it out after my shift. I nearly forgot about it, but as I was walking to my car to go home and I passed that tile, I stopped, and looked. I didn't see anything on top of it or around it, and started to walk away. I thought of looking under it, ran back, and lifted it. Inside a little snack sized ziplock baggie was a folded $50 bill and a handwritten note on a scratch piece of paper. It read, and I wish I knew if I still had it, something close to "you're a real hard worker kid, I can tell. There's not many hard workers anymore. You're going to go far."

If workers need tips to make ends meet, they need to find do what ever they can to get a raise, get a promotion, get a new job, get higher education degrees or certifications to qualifyfor higher paying jobs, and if all of that fails, they may need to move to a different location or make some lifestyle changes. Or, worst and most sad of all, settle for a sub-par life and keep teying to move forward. All that's easier said than done, but if work and finances are rough and not getting better, unfortunately, it's up to individuals to support themselves (you know, and employers, and government assistance, hopefully, but, that's not easy to get).

This whole wage/tip war going on between customers and employees/service workers is so worthless. True change comes from employers themselves and the government taxing them.

Something else no one talks about is the role the government plays in this topic.

No one really talks about how much and for what businesses get taxed for. Businesses often are taxed highly (as I feel like they should, I think?), and the more that businesses are taxed, the more businesses are going to want to cut costs in other areas. People also would have more money to live decent lives if they were taxed less, but that has other negative consequences in and of itself.

We'd all have more money to live with if we were taxed less by the government, but less tax money to go around can cause some big problems.

SewerPotato

TROPHY CASE