by Michael Smith
Reusable is definitely and certainly the way to go and that not only in the grocery bag department.
The same applies for water bottles and, I am certain, also for other aspect.
Why pay to throw away for one of the greatest costs of the bottled water is, in fact, the plastic bottles that you can, theoretically, due to health concerns, cannot reuse, at least not more than probably about ten times before the leaching of the chemicals could become critical.
One other that could be mentioned is male grooming, that is to say, shaving. It is very near, it would appear, impossible nowadays to get one of the old-style safety razors that took that nearly foil-thin razor blade. While the blades are still obtainable, though even they are rather pricey it would appear that the razors themselves have all but vanishes, at least as far as new ones are concerned. If there are still any out there maybe a manufacturer of them would like to get in touch with us and let us review one for an article.
Permit me, though, once more, to return to the silliness, not to say, stupidity, of bottled water. The people of the United States are the world's largest consumer of bottled water and with it plastic water bottles, but I wonder how many of them are actually aware that the designer water, and the water they believe to be spring water, that they consume by the thousands of gallons a day is, in a great majority of cases, nothing more than municipal tap water and while this may be filtered, even via so-called “reverse osmosis” it still is and remains nothing but tap. And I certainly would not pay $2 or more for a bottle of revamped tap water. I have better things to do with my money. Like buying a reusable water bottle and then using tap water, even though I may prefer to filter it via charcoal and such filter rather than drinking it neat. Nothing to do with the safety of it though; just I don't care much for the taste of chlorine.
Coca Cola still refuses to admit, despite that it is a well-known fact and open secret, which, so at least I hope, everyone knows, that its Dasani (?) water comes from public sources. In other words, it is nothing but municipal tap water. At least Pepsi hat the integrity to openly state on the bottles of their designer water that it is from public sources. But enough of the wet stuff for a moment, I guess. This was after all about reuse and not just water.
How many other things do we just throw away while they are, in fact, reusable, or while there are reusable versions available, and when it comes to one of the items I am as guilty as the next one, and that are batteries of the AA, the C, the AAA, and other such sizes. While there are rechargeable ones of them about, how many of us actually use them? I must say that I do not. Shame on me, I know.
Obviously, my cell phone, my two-way radios and other items, such as the laptop, do have rechargeable batteries, but then, they come as standard.
Well, as said above, the grocery bag is obviously one of the reuse items that we should consider, and we should ensure that we always have one or two with us, in case we have to rush to the stores. Reusable grocery bags can be had in all shapes and sizes and different materials and many you can even buy for lots of money. However, who would want to? Then again, you could buy Fairtrade cotton ones from a place such as Oxfam or similar and with your purchase support a good cause. In other instances there are livelihood projects such as Trashe Bolsas who make them from old advertising tarps and again the purchase of such bags brings an income to someone who needs it.
There is, on the other hand, absolutely nothing stopping you from making your own from some material or other. An old pair of jeans that has gone past its “use by date” or some other garment, such as a T-shirt, can be sewn into a shopper that one can then take to the store and fill again and again with groceries, thereby helping the environment in more than one way. Firstly you have recycled and re-purposed something that otherwise might have gone into the rubbish and secondly you keep those plastic bags out of circulation. Reuse always!
We could now here add the glass bottle and the glass jar as well. Those also could be reused and reused ad infinitum if we would just put measures in place to make them returnable to the stores – against a deposit – or simply against payment of a small sum, say 5pence or 10pence. Glass is such a valuable resource that it should not just be simple recycled by being crushed and reprocessed; it should be cleaned and reused till it actually breaks. The shards then can be recycled into new. Not before should that be done, that is to say, glass, whether bottles or jars, should until such a time that they really can no longer be used. Then and only then is the time to crush the glass for recycling and not before.
I am sure you all can give us all loads more of examples as to where we should employs reuse and you are all most welcome to add those to this via the comments section.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Reusable, the way to go!
