I was in Japan over Christmas break. I was amazed rather impressed by their green habits. 95% of all the public restroom in Kyoto and Tokyo had no paper towels with some exceptions like Roppongi hills area. Since Hand dryers were also hard to find, dumbstruck I looked around with my wet hands and found that every women was carrying a small handkerchief or hand towel for wiping her hands. This reminded me of my days in India, where I used to carry my handkerchief everyday before leaving my house. Living in states for the last 14 yrs, I have conveniently forgotten my old habits, since paper towels are present everywhere. But this luxury is not available back in India or in Japan, which kind of forces people to be GREEN.
Being a part of the green business community and trying to adopt a sustainable eco-friendly lifestyle myself, I came back to the bay area and researched on paper towels and their impact on the environment. I was shocked as you will be to know that
PAPER TOWELS CREATE 3000 TONS OF LANDFILL WASTE EVERYDAY.
Convenience item such as paper towel started off as a luxury, but then became commonplace and now are subject to mass abuse. Who pays the cost of this abuse? The environment, but ultimately it is US. By making smarter choices like carrying a handkerchief we can reduce the paper wastage.
We need to do our part of remembering to conserve what and where we can! These are small changes one can bring, before we start emulating Japan’s amazing transportation infrastructure, which I think beats a lot of countries.
