wasted

the other morning at work i received a package consisting of - the package, a large brown envelope and an A4 sheet of white paper addressing the package to me and detailing when it was sent, by whom and why.

without giving it much thought i threw away the top sheet and continued with my work.

now why did i need to throw away that top sheet? that clean, white, A4 sheet of paper with only a few lines of text printed along the top.

its just an automatic thing we do. we have no shortage of paper so we can afford to use it once, then throw it away. next time we need some paper to write a memo or something, we simply pull a fresh, clean sheet from a pile. this sheet will also find its way into the bin once it has served its single-use purpose.

i made a decision yesterday - this is almost an experiment - im not going to throw anything away until i am sure i cannot use it again. even if i only find one other use for it, this is better than simply throwing it straight into the bin.

this isnt so much an environmental thing. i dont really know enough about the processes and costs involved in recycling to argue either side of the debate. this is about consumption. needless consumption creating needless waste.

today i have forgotten my lunch again so will have to go to the shop and buy a sandwich.

what the hell can you re-use a sandwich box for? those triangular plastic, or card, boxes.

some things are going to require a little bit of imagination, especially whilst companies are dressing their products up in needless packaging. in the meantime though there are plenty of simple products that score high on the re-usability scale, one of which is second hand woolly jumpers from charity shops which come with the added bonus of helping the needy.