My attitude toward life changed a little when I started washing garbage in the dishwasher.
In the past, small packaging items like empty tuna fish cans and yogurt containers were garbage, thrown away and forgotten. Then we started recycling them. In my house, the empties sit in a plastic bag in the garage, sometimes for months, until the bag is full. To avoid turning my garage into an all-you-can-eat buffet for cockroaches, these objects are washed sparkling clean before they go into the bag.
The environmental value of saving those little bits of steel must be worth more than the environmental value of the hot water, energy and detergent it took to clean the cans. At least I hope so. And it is more environmentally prudent as well as cost-effective for the city if I take out my recyclables only when the bag is full. At least I think so.
We’re environmentally responsible if we exchange our old-fashioned light bulbs for the new compact fluorescents, except that the old bulbs were harmless and the compact fluorescents contain mercury. When they eventually burn out they will add mercury to the landfills, and (as I learned while checking facts for this article) if you break one, you will have highly toxic mercury dust in your house and a serious cleanup problem.
Until recently we were told to dispose of unused medications by flushing them down the toilet so that children wouldn’t accidentally be poisoned. Now there are public education campaigns to stop this. The sewer processing plants can’t filter the particles, so they poison the streams. Now we should throw the pills away wrapped in trash such as coffee grounds or used kitty litter, preferably enclosed in a plastic container like a margarine tub, except that we are supposed to recycle those margarine tubs.
The newest change has taken place with surprisingly little public attention. Manufacturers of dishwashing detergent have removed the phosphates, the result of a voluntary ban adopted by the American Cleaning Council, an industry trade group. The ban became official in July.
Phosphate detergent, it seems, is wonderful for getting your dishes clean but it’s seriously bad for waterways. It causes algae blooms that kill everything else in the water. However, the new detergents don’t clean your dishes as well, and they may gunk up the inside of the dishwasher. So you may have to use hotter water and rinse additives. And you may have to run the dishwasher empty from time to time, to clean the dishwasher itself, with new cleaners that you didn’t need before. These new formulas are apparently a work still in progress.
Conventional wisdom has been that automatic dishwashers are the most environmentally efficient method of washing dishes, primarily because they use much less water than hand-washing. But — hey — not if they don’t get the dishes clean. What’s the trade-off here? At least I don’t have to worry about the residue left on those empty tuna fish cans. Unless the taste appeals to cockroaches.
The decisions you and I make in our kitchens are a microcosm of the big public decisions facing us as we try to grapple with the multitude of environmental problems that are reaching critical mass: decisions like solar versus nukes versus coal versus freezing in the dark, all being discussed in a time of economic insecurity and fear for the future.
If I were 25 years old, I would be yelling, “Clean up my planet, you old slobs, and don’t you dare stick me with the bill.” If only we knew how.
Triple Spaced Again, © New Mexico News Services 2010; posted in 2011