James Mok’s Soliloquy

That’s the topic on the radio just now.

The hosts were wondering if they would themselves separate their own household garbage into different types before they throw them out even though their apartment buildings may or may not have garbage separating service for recycling. They say they would at least try to separate plastic bottles, glass bottles, and paper from other household garbages but other types of paper like disposable baby diapers would be difficult to deal with. One host then suggested to switch to reusable cloth diapers instead.

I wonder though if switching to reusable cloth diapers is actually more environmental protected than using disposable paper diapers. Surely there are still some plastic adhesive in a disposable diaper which is not environmentally degradable, however, the hot water and disinfectant used to properly wash a reusable cloth diaper might be even more environmentally damaging.

About 40 years ago, a friend of dad’s had this, he thought, great business idea. Mobilized collection of dirty reusable cloth baby diapers, wish them at a station, and then deliver them back to the customers. He quited the business after 2 months of operation. Just couldn’t bare the smell, and the running cost was simply too high.

I don’t know why some business people always act faster than their brains.

A decade ago, a EP tip calender on a colleague’s desk said that the energy needed to generate the heat for the hot water used in a single manual blade wet shave is equivalent to the energy in a fortnight use of rechargeable electric dry shaves!

What’s environmental protection is not always so obvious.