Remember a couple of days ago, when I stumbled across a box of plastic items imported from Montana, such as lids — but it seemed as if the box was missing something essential, such as the containers that went with those lids? At least part of this mystery appears to be solved with today’s box, which features a fairly obvious clue right on the front.

Box 11: Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2023

CONTENTS: You can’t quite make it out on the box in this photo, but the logo down on the lower left side is from Wheat Montana, a fine Montana company that makes bread and milled products such as flour. Now, I’m no Benoit Blanc, but the Montana connection puts me in mind of Day 7, when I discovered a similar batch of plastic containers. This must be the other box of plastics given to us by a Montana friend, who surrendered the plastic because there’s no curbside recycling where she lives. There’s a twist to this box, however: It also includes some of the boxes in which I received a few of my fountain pens. In some ways, these boxes are nicer than the pens, although I do love my fountain pens. No wonder I’ve never thrown the boxes away!

DISPOSITION: The bad news here, of course, is that the plastic containers aren’t recyclable in Corvallis’ comingled bins. They will have to go to TerraCycle, or a similar company, that will take these items off your hands, for a fee. So the household Master Recycler and I will set up a staging area where we will store the items for an eventual TerraCycle shipment. (Will the staging area be in the garage? Yes.) The biggest of the plastic containers will be put to use as informal bird baths in the backyard for those birds that appear to be too shy to use the actual bird bath. (Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.)

The Master Recycler grabbed the biggest of the Parker pen boxes and will use that for storage of, well, stuff. I will use the other boxes to store some of my numerous pen refills, which now run wild and free throughout my desk drawers. (And confidential to the commenter from Day 9 who accused me of being a rookie when it comes to pens: I will grant you that I may not be quite up to professional standards, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m playing at a Triple-A league level.)