- Paper Towels - These are a waste of money and resources and will harm the environment. It seems that consumers should be using cloth tea towels or purchase packets of microfiber cloths. They can be washed a few times before tossing them. Mind you, they cost more and on top of everything else we must use detergents, water and electricity to clean them. Seems to me that this is a waste of resources and still harms the environment by tossing them in the trash.
- Alkaline Batteries - It is not cost efficient to purchase regular batteries. Once they are used up we simply toss them in the trash. It is much better to use alkaline because they can be recharged. They cost more and you will need spare ones to use while one is being recharged, as well as the kit to recharge. One last word here...I tried this for a short while. I did not have great luck recharging. It seems as though the charging unit could not give the battery enough lasting power.
- Detergent Pods - The reason stated here was simply that powder performs better and lasts longer. Says who? Now I will agree that the big plastic container that the Pods come in may not be good for the environment. However, let's not forget the big tall plastic detergent bottles. My point being they are one in the same. Now consumers have the choice of purchasing packets of Pods to refill their plastic containers. Can liquid laundry soap claim this?
- Single Serve Coffee Pods - This time the article used Business Insider as a resource for doing the math as to which was more cost effective, a pound of coffee or the Coffee Pods. Math has never truly been my strong point, however, even I can see the pound of coffee costs less. Here is where you need to think about it. I am the only coffee drinker in the house. Usually only one 10 oz. cup of coffee. When I made the coffee in the coffee maker, I poured coffee down the drain each evening. You really can't make good coffee if you are trying to make less than 3 cups.
- Paper Coffee Filters - While we are on the subject of coffee, did you know that you do not need to buy those paper coffee filters? That had to come from a non coffee drinking person. I for one, do not want coffee grinds to get into my cup of coffee, nor do I want to try to clean the grinds out of the filter already in place. Think about it!
- Tea Bags - Now let's get right to it. I don't need Business Insider to do my math. Depending on the quality of the tea, there is no difference in the price of tea bags vs. loose leaf tea. Again, this article is all about the environment. Those tea bags must take hundreds of years to disintegrate.
- Bottled Water - Sometimes it is just more convenient to carry around a throw away plastic water bottle in order to stay hydrated. My Yeti costs a bit more if I forget and leave it someplace. Plus, the smaller water bottles work well going in my handbag. Walk through a grocery store and look around. Almost all of the liquids are stored in plastic bottles. Perhaps we should work on having recycle trash pick up. Over twenty years ago we had it where I used to live. In fact, homeowners were fined if they did not participate. I now live in a large metropolitan area and we still do not have it.
- Plastic Straws - Yet again it is all about the environment. Forget the patient who needs a flexible straw to get liquid in his body. Forget putting two straws in a milkshake and sharing with a friend or the big smile that children have on their faces when handed a straw to drink from. Apparently, reusable paper and steel straws are now available. My question is how do you clean them properly. Some liquids dry up inside the straws and it would not be sanitary to try soaking them. Putting one end up to your eye is not going to let you see all of the germs left behind. This just totally grosses me out.
- Take-Away Food - In all fairness, my husband and I have found it cheaper in many cases to order out from certain restaurants. In today's times the portions are often humongous. We have the option of getting one meal and sharing it or getting our own and saving the other half for lunch the next day. It seems to be basically about the food containers. I just don't get it. The food that we buy in the grocery stores are in containers, are they not?
- Paper Plates and Cups - We are harming our environment if we use these. When having a cookout or party we should buy plates and cups that are made of plastic. Then, you can have all of that fun washing them by hand since they do not do well in the dishwasher. Oh, by the way, if you are like me, you have all the space in the world to store them. At least I know the paper ones will be going, going, gone soon. I will share with you something to use in place of plastic forks, spoons and knives, none of which work well due to their flimsiness. They get tossed right along with the paper plates. In many stores there are boxes of forks, spoons and knives that look like real silverware. They actually are plastic, just a heavy duty one. I will actually put these in the dishwasher. When trying to eat a steak, you don't have to worry that a tine on a fork is going to fly across the table.
- Plastic Wrap and Foil - Of course, Tubberware will help to save the environment, no matter that water and dish soap are used, plus electricity if a dishwater is used. Moving right into this area of discussion is wasting money on zip lock baggies. Did you know there is such a thing as reusable zip locks? I have one question...how do we clean them?
- Lunch Box Size Food Items - What a convenient way to waste your money! If you have children who carry their lunchboxes to school you should buy the big bag of chips or desserts and manually divide it up. Most of the containers do not fit well in the lunch boxes. Unless you have a large family, the food will go stale before you get to it.
- Disposable cameras - Really? I had no idea that they still made disposable cameras. (They really do, I had to look that one up on Google.)Except for photographers you barely see real cameras anymore. Everyone pulls out their cell phones to snap pics these days. I just figured the author was coming to the end of what he could list as a money waster.
After reading this, I did come to the conclusion that basically this article was more from an environmental point of view, which I am not against. I just believe that the governments should buy into this and provide recycle pick ups. The next major hurdle is to get the manufacturers to work on their packaging. We do need to be mindful of the trash that we create. It will take teamwork.
P.S. The reason this blog is so late being published is due to the fact that we had a big storm come through and we had no power for over 6 hours. Then, we counted our blessings because we finally had electricity, which meant air and lights. It was more than 24 hours later that we finally had Internet for me to publish this blog. More about that topic on my next blog.
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