Going Green in Comfort

(Photo by Eduardo Bogosian / FreeRangeStock.com ) Where I work, we used to have good, quality paper towels in the restrooms to use after washing our hands, but as a cost-saving measure three or four years ago, someone higher up the chain than me decided that thinner towels were the way to go. The problem, though, is that they're so much thinner than instead of using one towel, I now need three to get my hands completely dry. I wash my hands, then wave one hand in front of the dispenser, which has a motion sensor, to get it to roll out a towel. I rip that towel off with one hand and right away wave the other hand to get a second towel to roll out while I dry my hands as well as I can with the first towel. Then I throw away the first towel, rip off the second and wave my hand again for towel No. 3. With that towel, I finish drying my hands then use it as a buffer between my hands and whatever germs might be lingering on the door handles as I exit. When management fir...

When I was a kid, each year for Halloween I wore whatever costume my older sister had chosen the year before. I have no idea what my mom did with them once I outgrew them, though I figure they probably wound up rotting in a landfill somewhere. But back then, costumes weren't made like they are today. The body of the costume was very flimsy material that frayed easily. Most had only a drawing of an outfit on the front and nothing on the back. So, for instance, the year I went trick-or-treating as Lucy from "Peanuts," my costume had a print of Lucy's blue dress on the front. The masks that accompanied the costume was made of plastic and had little eye holes, nostril holes and one mouth hole just big enough for kids to entertain themselves by sticking their tongue through it. An elastic cord stapled on each side of the mask helped secure it to the child's face. Even if I had a younger sister close enough to my age to pass the costume on down again, they weren...