Truthfully don’t know exactly what the buttons on my journals are made of; my best guess is that it is some type of plastic. And although I may not know what type of plastic they are or if they even are plastic, I still would like to use this as an opportunity to speak about plastic.

Plastics are environmentally hazardous when being produced and disposed. They are not considered harmful as a final product, although there have been studies that report other wise. We can recycle some plastics, but it is only some. Most cities accept only a couple types of plastic for recycling. These are often type 1 and type 2 plastics. When these plastics go through the actual recycling process they can only be mixed with the same type and color plastic. For example type 1 plastic can not be mixed with type 2 plastic, and a white plastic milk jug can not be mixed in with a yellow plastic orange juice jug even if they are the same of type. If they do mix the entire batch being recycled will become contaminated. Due to its contamination sensitivity only a fraction of what is sent to be recycled actually makes it through the recycling process. On top of all this the process of recycling plastic is in and of itself harmful. Plastics release toxin when heated and in order for plastics to be recycled they must be melted down, which means more air pollution is created.