People are using hand sanitizer, wet wipes, and all forms of disinfectant like they are going out of style (human biome be damned). I get it, kind of, but let’s take a step back for a second and think more broadly about consumption.
When you wash your hands in a public restroom do you use just one paper towel or multiple? When you grab sauce packets at a restaurant/food court do you have extras or just the right amount?
Think about it this way, if you had to pay for all of the extra things you grabbed or used would you still grab or use as many?
As a Personal Training in Boise owner, I pay attention to the number of paper towels, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer we go through because those costs add up (our hand sanitizer is $100 a pop and you don’t want to know how many we go through). This has caused me to think about my usage everywhere I go. I know that somebody is paying for the things I am using and I want to be respectful and courteous of them and their money.
It is easy to get caught in the mental trap of it being “free” but as you well know by this point in your life nothing is free. Somebody is paying for it, even if that somebody is all of us due to the environmental impact it is having. We even get stuck in this mindset when we are in fact the ones that paid for it!
Let’s say we have an overabundance of cookies in our house. We are more likely to eat two(maybe three) at a time instead of one. That is until we are running low at which point most of us will reduce our consumption to one cookie per serving to extend our cookie eating time.
If you start treating everything as if you are the one paying for it(financially or otherwise) I bet you will consume less, possibly lose some weight, and help the environment all while being more conscious of your choices. Furthermore, as a bonus, if you so choose you can become a moral snob who looks down their nose upon people who are not considerate enough to only use one paper towel instead of two to dry their hands. YES! SCORE!