I'm Green with Irritation

I am in favor of taking extra steps to save our little planet. At home we recycle and try to buy items with less packaging. We use the water saver mode on the dishwasher and skip the extra rinse cycle on the washing machine unless we’re dealing with super icky clothes.

However, I think just maybe some ‘green’ features in our world go a bit too far. The toilets in the restrooms that have been set to low flow for “liquid” waste and less low flow for “solid” waste are to a fault – wasteful. I find that the liquid waste flush doesn’t remove the modest amount of paper that I need, and therefore two flushes are required. The solid flush is completely incapable of removing anything beyond a small amount of paper in one single flush.

Then, once I’ve moved to the hand sanitation zone (sink) the soap dispenser is automatic but is so close to the automatic water sensor that the water kicks on while the soap is squirting onto my sleeve. I try to lather up but the water comes on and off intermittently and usually is more than I need to rinse off.

Once sufficiently free of suds I move over to the water removal station, where the automatic paper towel dispenser that has zipped out a piece of paper when I walked up, zipped one out when I pull off my square and then will zip out another when I spin to leave the area.

All in all, I’ve used more water than needed to flush, more soap than needed to be sanitary and way too much water to rinse my hands. The paper towel thing is frustrating. In the old days I would be able to pick up a towel off the counter, wipe off and leave, but the new machines either spit out too much paper or you have to stand there and do the Jedi Mind Trick hand wave to get it to go, meanwhile you are flipping water all over the bathroom. I know the logic is that these pre-set units of water, soap and paper are intended to cause less usage than if we were allowed to walk up to the all you can wash & dry buffet. For me, the preset amounts cause me to use more, so I wonder who those people are that this program helps. And, for that matter if they were using 16 sheets of towels before what is to stop them from using 16 now? It is a simple wave of the hand...

Don’t even get me started on what they’ve done with the trash, recycle and compost bins. But let me just say that it is complicated and these freakishly smart engineers that can build new, innovative and creative inventions can’t work out that the wax coated cups can’t be recycled or composted.

To force the issue, facilities have removed trash bins from under the cubicles. We have a large recycle bin and a tiny compost bin, but for trash you have to walk to the lunch room area. I’m not sure how that cuts down on trash, but it does get us up off our butts.