Sunday, February 8, 2015

No Respect for Paper Towels

Throughout elementary, middle school, and high school I have always been referred to as a treehugger by my peers. Funnily enough, this all began in the bathrooms of my elementary school.

I remember those thin brown paper towels that were in the bathrooms. Their crumpled forms often littering the bathroom floor. At times, a soppy mess of them could be seen directly below the sinks. It was disgusting to me that there were so many; so many covering the floors and falling out of the trash cans. I knew why there was so many, and it was not due entirely to laziness.

Whenever I would go to the bathroom with a friend or two, I would notice how many paper towels they used to dry their hands. Let me tell you, it was more than just two. They used four, sometimes five. My question to them was always, "why do you need so many towels to dry your hands?". Their usual answer was: "Well, why not?". The answer was: "Well, you're wasting paper. You're killing trees,".

As I was growing up, my parents made sure to bestow in me knowledge about the consequences of wasting resources. Due to this, I knew that the more paper towels we used, the more trees were lost. So I did my best not to use any more paper towels than it took to dry my hands, which should be only one. 

In high school, much to my dismay, nothing had changed in the bathrooms. The same scene I described above was still present! Had my classmates still learned nothing??? 

It certainly appears as though people do not give much care to how they use resources. Many people have hope for future generations, but I think that is wishful thinking. The future adult generations won't be any more aware of their actions than the current ones because there are not enough people teaching their kids about the importance of conservation. And they certainly don't spend much time in school exposing students to the idea of being environmentally friendly. In all my time in school, we have only spent Earth Day talking about being green- that's it! That isn't enough! What's worse is that it doesn't matter if you educate people on the environment if you are not following through with what you are teaching. People truly learn by example. All my friends who would use five paper towels, they learned to do that by watching everyone else do it and finding that no one told them to do otherwise. 

We cannot continue to use resources so frivolously. All people should have a clear idea of the consequences of wasting resources. Our planet just can't afford to have us use so many paper towels.