I overhear more that surprises me at the hairdresser than anywhere else. Today though I was bowled over when Michelle, my hairdresser, told me that she started recycling at home. It was a by chance thing, she said. One day the trash company happened to drop off a big, rolling, recycling bin at the end of the driveway so she stuck it in the garage next to the trash bin and thought, “Amy has been bugging me about this for years now, why not give it a try”. She was shocked to discover that most of her trash was actually recyclable and that the two of them (and the dog) only generate about a bag a week of true unrecyclable trash.
I was so excited! First because we have a new winner of the One-Bag-Week Challenge. Congratulations Michelle your contest prize will be winging its way to you soon! Changing habits can be difficult but recycling, especially commingled recycling where everything goes in the same bin, is a very easy change. The hardest part may be wheeling that second bin out to the curb. Michelle’s next mission is to get the salon to recycle.
The second reason I was excited is that this was a huge step in Michelle’s adoption of a
One day’s K-Cup usage at a small office
sustainable lifestyle. Her next shocking revelation was that she had thrown out her Keurig machine and had purchased one that allowed her to make any size coffee from a cup to a pot with any kind of coffee bean. She donated her extra pods to the salon and is buying whole beans that she grinds and brews. She reports that the coffee tastes better, is easy to make AND she is saving a lot of money. I almost hugged her mid-haircut!
With all this news I said to Michelle that she could
now get those dryer balls we had been talking about and stop using dryer sheets. “Oh that, I did that months ago but didn’t want to tell you. I love them and wish I had gotten them long ago.” I did hug her. Way to go Michelle.
My problem with all of this change is what am I going to nag her about next….phantom loads? Restrictive flow aerators? Xeriscaping?
[Personal Aside: Keurig may be the most wasteful, over-priced product ever invented. Although it is feasible to recycle the cups it is tedious, time consuming and difficult so it is the rare person who takes on the challenge. In 2012, I estimated that over 11 billion Keurig cups were in landfills; that number has grown significantly these past 4 years (an estimate of sales for 2013-2015 is 27 billion cups). Although Keurig says that its cups may all be recyclable soon, participation in that recycling cannot be guaranteed. Personally I think that a portion of Keurig’s profits should flow back to the municipal landfills throughout the world as rent to help offset management costs.]
