Common sense.
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 7:37AM A while back, I was posting chapters of an old novel that I had started writing in college. The readership statistics for it were hovering around zero, so I ditched it.
However, I heard something on the radio the other day that made me giggle just a bit. In honor of Earth Day, the radio folks were sharing some simple steps we could all take to make a difference. One was aimed at workplace coffee drinkers. In addition to bringing in your own mug or cup or schooner to reduce waste from styrofoam cups, the DJ advised pouring your sugar and creamer into said mug/cup/schooner first, and then topping off with the coffee. When the liquid is added, it will naturally blend the condiments, through both its heat and the swirling motion as it fills the vessel. Et, voila! No more waste from plastic or even wooden swizzle sticks.
Some of you may remember--oh, wait, no. Only Stasa will remember.
As I was saying, Stasa will remember that Ben from Brave Front employed this method. Ben was hardly an environmentalist, mind you; he just didn't see the sense in dirtying a spoon. I do this, too. I learned it from my dad, the most practical and methodical person I know. (He's also a great big sweetie-pie, but that's just gravy.)
So there you have it. It's an old-school idea, originally intended to reduce dirty dishes, now applied to reducing waste, overall. (And, yeah, you could make the argument that reducing dirty dishes saves water and reduces the amount of detergent entering the water table, yada-yada-yada.)
But maybe sometimes the common-sense application is the easier sell. We don't have to get all tangled up in eco-political movements, if we could just do the thing that makes sense.
Gee, what are the odds? I fear about the same as the readership levels for Brave Front.
Reader Comments (3)
So I thought about this a lot over the weekend and you gave me a gift with this post. I used to think I was a control freak and that's why I do things like sort my grocery list on the computer in the order of the store's layout, and keep three laundry hampers in my closet so that I am automatically sorting my laundry all the time -- whites, darks, towels. I'm actually a little obsessed with efficiency. So... thank you for clarifying that for me.
Yep. You're all right. Just extremely efficient. I don't think it's a problem unless you impose it on other people or it prevents you from enjoying life. Like, if you could never go to the grocery store without your geographical list, that might be a problem. But I'm pretty sure you can run in for milk and bread without making a project plan.
Right?
Yes, thank goodness I can do that.