Some facts this morning to bolster my instinct on paper towels, courtesy of Ideal Bite (a website with daily green factiods). According to the "biters" (as they call themselves), Americans send 3,000 tons of paper towels to the landfill every day. That's a lot of sopping up!
It's been fairly easy to switch from paper to cotton (and bamboo...more on that later). I now keep a couple of towels out on the counter, one by the paper towel rack, and use those for wiping my hands, buffing up the counter, wiping up spills. Then I toss them in the wash pile after a day or two's use (depending on the use). I'm down to using paper towels for excessively dirty or unhygenic jobs. Pretty amazing that I've had a partial roll of paper towels up for a week. Normally it would be gone in a day or two.
One of the neat side effects of going green is that I discover cool new products. I recently purchased some gorgeous, soft, absorbent kitchen towels made of 85% bamboo and 15% cotton. I have a couple of light sweaters made of bamboo, but this is the first kitchen towel I've seen. I like it at least as well as the microfiber towels I've been partial to in recent years.
On another shade of green, more of a khaki really, we head out today to visit our friend in prison. It will be a grueling couple of days with driving, waiting in line, visiting while our hearts are breaking and our minds are shouting out that this is wrong, then coming home and collapsing. And we're the ones that get to come home! Imagine what it's like for him...or don't. It's better not to.
Good thoughts appreciated.
You have to be careful about what you take, too. I've been asked to change a couple of times in recent months. I forgot that women's white, scoop-necked t-shirts look too much like inmate shirts. And I was told that my light brown baggy sweater looked too much like the guards' uniforms. (Yeah, I can see how a baggy, unbleached cotton sweater can look like a dark khaki uniform from a gun tower...sure.)
So the answer, obviously, has been to come up with a uniform of our own. I think, after 3 years and 1 month of visiting various prisons, I've finally gotten the packing down. A wild shirt and black pants for Dan. An underwire-free bra for me (dangerous weapon, those underwires), black pants and a non-white, non-green shirt. That's a lot to remember, so I'm considering getting a couple of wild shirts like Dan has and sticking with those.
23 more visits and then he's out...that's just under 23 months left. Can't wait for that day. First we spring him, then we celebrate...then I burn the bra.
And start buying green clothes again. (Of both varieties.)
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