Nice gams

For most people I know doing the right thing is a given when doing the wrong thing would be unthinkable.

Take littering for example. There’s nobody I know who would knowingly litter anything. Perhaps these folks would toss biodegradable food bits, but that’s about the worst of it.

When it comes to cutting our conspicuous over consumption of non-essentials, however, there seems to be a big disconnect.

Even when the products have little or no repurposing value, and can only be bound for the landfill, still we buy, use, toss, buy, use, toss, totally oblivious to the impact we’re making on an already overshot planet.

Less is more

So today I encourage you to give up yet another thing that you’ve likely become used to in our world of endless personal products. That’s shaving cream.

Recently my conservation-minded hubby got a straight edge razor and old-fashioned shaving soap so that he could kick the disposable razor habit and nix shaving creams.

Well we chicks are just as guilty.

Kick the can..and bottle…and tube

Being a beauty-minded Libra, the last thing I’ll suggest is to stop shaving your legs and armpits if, like me, you like smooth legs and underarms.

Now, if you already don’t shave, more power to you. But I’m not going there. I will suggest, though, that we shavers ditch the shaving cream. This one simple act can save you about $50 bucks a year and it’s just the right thing to do.

Since shaving cream containers have little chance of ending up anywhere but in a landfill, their disposal is like littering, only without the gleeful toss from a speeding car.

Export litterers

In many ways our landfills are like the first cousin once-removed of littering. Or maybe the step-child. We can happily ignore the reality of the landfill because it’s out of sight, out of mind. Here in the US it’s not like the Indian cities in Slumdog Millionaire.

At least not yet.

Instead we tidily toss a shaving cream can in the bathroom waste basket and empty our waste baskets once a week and the garbage collectors come once a week and our houses stay fresh and purdy. Behind the scenes our “littering” is nicely disguised in a seemingly respectable process.

But export littering to the landfill down the road has the same net effect as litter—stinking, growing, eyesores that despoil our lands and landscapes, poisoning us and future generations with toxic leaching. With seven billion people on the planet ripping through resources like a greedy kid on Christmas morning, something’s gotto give.

Be the change

It’s called self-sacrifice. Giving stuff up willingly. And let’s face it, giving up shaving cream for your legs when there’s still soap to use is ultimately not that painful. After all, I’m not asking you to give up your round trip flight to the beach.

Oh wait, yes I am.

–Lindsay Curren, Lindsay’s List

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