Breaking the Disposable Habit

While our new President works on getting the economy back in a good place, the rest of us can work on turning ourselves green. Or so the story goes. Going Green is the new mantra of the socially responsible and not nearly as easy as some would have us believe.

For example, this site gives us 10 disposable things we never have to buy again. Among those things are bottled water, disposable diapers, paper towels, wrapping paper and air filters. Great! But every non-disposable has its downside.

Cloth diapers are a mess! No other way to put it. And they stink. The wet-only diapers can go straight to the diaper pail. It is the wet-plus diapers that require rinsing out in the toilet, wringing out excess water and extreme hand washing afterwards.

Paper towels are another mess saver these helpful people would like us to give up. Cloth tea towels work just as well if not better than paper towels, that much is true. But what to do about zotting pre-cooked breakfast bacon? Cloth napkins soaked in bacon grease – yuck! I tried to get Michal Anne to join me in vegetarianism. No luck.

Then the bottled water thing. Absolutely right! We do need to get off bottled water. So how do we deal with the disaster preparedness thing? A gallon of water a day is recommended for every household member with enough stored water for 3 days. I personally think 7 days is better but no one asked so I don’t tell. Then the other little dirty secret is that bottled water has an expiration date! Yes, who knew water could go bad? So I buy bottled water for disaster preparedness and then have to drink it before it goes bad and then replace it with new bottled water. The problem is pretty unsolvable.

Permanent air filters – works for me. Non-paper wrapping paper – good idea - sometimes. But what about all the cities and states that do not recycle? Having just been to Spartanburg, South Carolina, I can testify that they do not recycle. We threw away too many recyclables for me to feel comfortable buying even one bottle of water.

Recycling is a good idea – a planet saving idea. It has a few glitches and a few holdouts. Maybe we could go to work on those. Anyone with any ideas let us know! And if you know of a city, state, town or county without recycling let us know and we will post their names on the Wall of Shame.