ECOfreak: The 10 Things We Could All Do Without

By Desiree Parker Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I try not to be too preachy about all this eco stuff. I do, really. But there are a few items that we use every day that make me cringe when I see people use them.

So, to help me work through my frustration, I decided to share with you Desiree’s Top 10 List of Annoying, Superfluous Things We Can Live Without.

I will begin with this witty haiku: annoying package/ hard to open, useless/ I’d rather eat a bug.

I’m working on improving that one. Anyway, on to the list.

10) Plastic grass in take-out sushi. I see this in my coworker’s trash can all the time. If I saw a clump of real grass on my plate in a restaurant, I would likely not want to eat what was next to it. When I see grass in a field, I do not associate it with fresh, tasty sushi. In Japan, fluorescent green plastic grass is not synonymous with fresh deliciousness. I say, leave the plastic grass for Easter Baskets – that’s bad enough.

9) Cheap, useless plastic toys that go in birthday baggies and piñatas. I mean, how did it become a good idea to fill a bag with plastic bugs, little erasers that don’t erase, and plastic bouncy balls that are too small to catch? Why not give the kids the $5 it cost you to fill this bag, and save a trip to the trash can? I don’t know the answer to the piñata dilemma, though. If it’s not little plastic rings and dinosaurs, I guess its pounds of candy. There has to be some better way – maybe snail shells and seashells? I’m still working on a better idea.

8) Plastic stirrers, and those plastic plugs for the hole in your plastic coffee lid. Okay, they are fun to have mini sword battles with, but that pleasure lasts about five minutes. Use a spoon, save some money and waste. Though some of those plastic plugs are pretty enough to make a necklace out of…

7) Straws. I mean, really. How much do we need straws? Can’t our plastic soda lids have a slot to drink out of? Do we really drive so fast that we’re sloshing soda all over the cup holder? Not to mention, you have to push the straw in and sometimes that can make a holy mess anyway. Don’t get me started on spoon-straws, either.

6) Toothbrushes. Even though I pick up recycled toothbrushes, I feel horrible guilt when I toss one out every three or four months. I know there are electric toothbrushes with changeable heads, but why can’t we have regular toothbrushes that do that? According to Preserve, the company that makes my recycled toothbrush, annual toothbrush waste adds up to about 50 million pounds a year. Wow.

5) Toy packaging. Any parent can attest to the freakishly overdone packages toys come in. Trying to cut around the hard edges of these suckers will either leave a red welt on your hand or break your scissors. Sometimes at Christmas we have to break out the hunting knife to pry out the little plastic toy made in China that our son thought he couldn’t live without. Let’s also add here the plastic shrink wrap around bottles and jars of condiments and other edible things. I know two or three decades ago a guy poisoned some bottles of Tylenol, but really – if someone wanted to do it again, they could find a way around the plastic seals. Or just poison something else. Or just wait for the plastic to poison us.

4) Styrofoam meat trays. I’ve devoted a blog to this one before, but I think it deserves revisiting. I remember as a child going to a local butcher and getting meat wrapped in brown paper (without a plastic liner). When you got it home, you put it in Tupperware or just cooked it right away. Easy breezy.

3) Water bottles. I know everyone always talks about this one, but we still use them all the time. I get that we like the convenience of our packaged beverages, but there’s no reason not to refill a metal drink container or just use the water fountain. I won’t even bore you with statistics on this one. Okay, maybe just one: bottled water produces 1.5 million tons of waste a year.

2) Disposable Razors. This goes along with my toothbrush issue, but we already have razors with disposable heads. Why in the world do we need individual ones we can throw out? Plus, if you’ve ever tried to shave with one of these bad boys, you’ll know how easy it is for them to slip (since they’re hollow and lightweight). It’s my opinion that this is how the soul patch trend started – a guy trying to trim his goatee with a disposable razor that slipped.

1) Desiree’s Number One Most Annoying Thing We Can Live Without: Musical greeting cards. My family got me one of these for Valentine’s Day – a sweet thought, but secretly it horrified me. I mean, honestly, even for the catchiest tune, how many times do you listen to the card, really? I took mine apart (once I was finished appreciating the thoughtfulness of what they’d written) to recycle the paper part. Inside is a battery (which I recycled, but let’s be honest about what people REALLY do with these), and a bunch of plastic. Oh, horror.

What are the things that annoy you the most that you think we can live without? Share your thoughts below.

Web site for the week: Here’s a fun video clip that GrinningPlanet picked up from YouTube. This is exactly how I picture my somewhat-naïve view of being green is all about. Actually, they may have plucked this right out of one of my daydreams. Though usually those involve chocolate.

Tip for the week: Cut out one superfluous plastic thing from your life. My latest resolution has been to not get lids for any to-go cups I use. (Oh, and to never let my wonderful family get me a musical card again).