I am annoyed:
• By the fact that disposable razors are so much cheaper than reusable ones, because the replaceable razor blades cost a fortune.
• By this woman’s warm, cultured voice and smart pantsuit, intended to reassure me that the oil crisis is in capable hands.
• That the little green plastic baskets that cherry tomatoes come in are not recyclable!!
• That e-greetings cards seem so uncaring or lazy, so I feel obligated to send paper cards instead.
• About the grey hairs on my head, visible because hair dye is evil.
• About my unpainted toenails, because nail polish is evil. Oh, yeah, as are almost all cosmetics.
• That I never remember to take my vast collection of reusable grocery bags with me to the grocery store.
• That my credit card company keeps sending me monthly bills in the mail, even though I’ve repeatedly clicked the “Go Paperless” icon and asked them not to.
• By anything in hard plastic clamshell packaging that is not only difficult and dangerous to open but is a waste of natural resources — and cannot be recycled.
• Because it’s so difficult to be an environmentally ethical consumer.
8 comments
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July 25, 2008 at 4:15 pm
squadratomagico
I have the same problem with the damn shopping bags. I have so many of them, and half the time I forget to bring them! Urrgh!
Having become a recent convert to hair dye, I’m not ready to give that up.
July 25, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Sisyphus
My sister is a biotech safety manager and I have spent many summers filing things for her, including the MSDSs (material data safety sheets). Based on those I won’t touch nail polish ever again, even though I love it (sigh) — even the formaldehyde and toulene free ones have too much horrifying stuff in them! And I felt awful using polish remover and then tossing the used tissues or whatever into the trash for them to destroy the environment.
(ooh and the creepy thing is that clothing manufacturers still regularly spray their clothing in formaldehyde so that they look all nice and non wrinkly in the display piles. Wash everything at least once before wearing!)
Having given up nail polish though, I can’t bear to part with my hair dye. Ah well — mitigation if not elimination!
July 26, 2008 at 2:00 am
Casey
That I never remember to take my vast collection of reusable grocery bags with me to the grocery store.
Mine are always piled in front of the passenger seat in my van, where I can see them. And I still forget them half the time anyway.
July 27, 2008 at 2:25 am
Mel
not sure if this will be non evil enough for you, but it’s vegan:
http://www.nomiss.com/nailpolish.html
July 27, 2008 at 5:18 pm
maude lebowski
yeah, i was totally cringing the other night when my hairdresser and i spent three hours bleaching my hair! i can only hope that i didn’t fry my brain and that i drink enough water to mitigate the toxic effects of the said haircoloring adventure. i could give up nail polish though before i gave up dying my hair, i think.
ugh, you’re right. it’s so damn hard to be an eco-conscious and ethical consumer.
July 27, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Notorious Ph.D.
When I first arrived at Fellowship University, they had just kicked off a major environmental initiative to reduce waste and carbon emissions by some huge percent over the next five years. Every campus building was (and still is) ornamented with banners about the new initiative, complete with no doubt well-researched pithy slogans. Yet, as I strolled one of the main pedestrian areas of campus that day, I could not find a single recycling bin for my soda can. Nor did my office (or the building it was in) come equipped with any way to recycle paper.
Grrrr…
July 27, 2008 at 6:41 pm
bsgirl
Thanks everyone for being so understanding about my rant. There is some comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in feeling that most of the time like I’m somehow screwing up the environment, despite all my efforts to do otherwise. Sigh.
As for the hair dye question … I stopped coloring my hair about a year ago — long enough for all the dye to grow out and all my grey to grow back in. I had been coloring my hair for so long that I didn’t realize how grey I’d become. It has been a real blow to my self-esteem and I have to keep talking myself out of going back (and, who knows, maybe I will) … but I just keep thinking about all those chemicals running down the drain … and the fact that there is not a single hair dye (even the so called “natural” ones) that doesn’t test on animals. Poor little bunnies! For them, I’ll proudly go grey.
July 27, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Sisyphus
bsgirl, the Aveda store where I get my hair cut collects its water and does _something_ to it before it goes into the drain system. You may want to ask around. (I color my hair at home, so I’m not really taking advantage of that service, but I appreciated the idea..)
Or maybe henna or something? … I had heard though that henna doesn’t cover over gray well. Hmm.