Paper Towels - Sustainability is hard!

Today we had a discussion about paper towels. We had gone to Home Depot and I thought I would get paper towels while there. I didn't end up buying as I could get them cheaper elsewhere but this was the first time Fred had seen how much they can cost and he was floored. No more paper towel. It's costing us $100s per year.

OK but I'm careful to use one piece at a time under specific circumstances (wiping up flour or greasy foods) and I buy them on sale. I've noticed he uses handfuls at a time - what's with that? Why am I arguing rather than agreeing to get rid of this unnecessary expense? I want to know what's up with these mass use instances!!! Still, he's right, there are more reusable alternatives and we should use them. Changing habits are hard.

Which brings me to government intervention in environmental change. A lot of people are blind to the role government plays in changing product use. Canada is notoriously slow to change staying with wood (!) heating long after other countries had transitioned. But boy did they go hard to get us on the fossil fuel train. Not only through oil and gas for energy but by replacing sustainable practices with plastic based materials.

Growing up, paper bags were common. We were moved away from them because they used up trees. What about other biomass sources. Crops produce a lot of cellulose material.What about better re-pulping systems. Sure they would be expensive but it's not as if the transition to plastic was free. But shifting to plastic bags was made easy - all of a sudden they were everywhere and they were packaged so they got holes in them when used so they where hard to reuse even as garbage bags.

Then there's getting rid of glass - a super reusable product that is easy to crush and reform. Heavy to transport? Bottle (and employ) locally. Uses too much water for washing? Zero discharge is a viable option along with insulating lines to reduce energy loss. Again, plastic bottles seamlessly replaced glass bottles and refilling and/or bulk products really became less accessible.

So, even though we have solar for electricity, no car days to reduce air pollution and a compost bin; there is a long way to go. More microfibre cloths and blue scrubby sponges* with wash days - much better than paper towels. More bulk buying where we take our own containers. And we are LUCKY! We have the time and money to make these changes.  This is why government support is so important - from funding research into alternatives to supporting newer technologies until they get a foothold. Government can make change easier by ensuring alternatives exist and are implemented.

*magic erasers will be pried from my cold dead hands but I will reduce their use.