The Wine Bottle and the TP---Revolution Watch

I read so much about sustainability sometimes I forget to look around and make assessments of my own actions. Here are a couple of items that recently got my attention. The first one is the much loved toilet paper. Now, I know this is not that exciting, well, it can be, I guess, if a pleasant time was had sitting on the hopper reading the Economist, but generally it is just an everyday item of necessity. Ever entertain a good movement only to find there is not a single patch of tissue--then we find out it's value.

The first thing that got my attention was the thought of what folks did when they didn't have "bum roll" as it is called else where. I mean, the stuff has not been around that long---I figured. Well, it turned out there was some form of it in China in the 6th century but the arsewipe we had, and that includes the printed stuff found around the elections with the candidates pictures on it, has be around about 125 years or so. It would appear the aristocrats may have had it longer but the average yahoo, not so lucky. They had to resort to cobs and leaves, or nice bunch of grass maybe Au-natural. That would be a nice chick magnet.

What I noticed, and I was reminded of today, is that we go through the stuff with great gusto. Today she wanted to know if we consumed an entire roll in one day. I took pleasure in the soft paper only once today, so I assumed if it was all gone, either a ghost used it or Ann engaged the remainder which would be 90%, by herself.  Fact is, it appeared to all be gone in one day. I say three days would be more common but if there were guest around or kids, ya, one a day.

Two issues, the rolls now cost $1 or damn close unless purchasing it by the pallet load (we don't) which implies $30/month. That is astounding even if it is half. To top it off, forest are consumed and energy plundered and chlorine is used to make it nice and white--it could be brown. What a drain on me and the environment. 15/month, wow! Where have we come?

Then there is the wine bottle. Just in looking at the bottle it is real obvious that the cost of the beer, which is the good part, the healthy part, is obviously much less than the glass. What? How the hell does that make any sense? In the 50s we returned every beer bottle. How can it be cheaper to make new ones all the time? Do you realize how cheaply we could drink our beer and wine if we didn't have bottles? I noticed in France we could go into a hardware store and get wine out of a huge vat by way of a gasoline type hose and dump it into a 5 gallon carboy and the great stuff cost $2/liter. My God, what a savings. We could be ripped most of the time for nothing more than a song.

Sweet Jesus, where is our sustainability. We need to make some changes---but I can't visualize corn cobs.