Scoop Free Musings

I don't think I am the only person with slight hoarder tendencies, because I see other people do it, even if they aren't aware.  For example, Brandon tends to be attracted to containers.  Tool boxes, tool bags, nifty drawers for small objects, display cases, backpacks, army bags, and all sorts of specialty containers for his art supplies.  I think he gets just as much pleasure from having a cool container for something, as he gets from having the something.  Sometimes he has containers for his containers!  

I like containers of the glass sort.  I have canning jars, wine bottles, beer bottles, brewing carboys, crocks, gallon milk jars, honey jars, and an even an assortment of jars that are meant to be disposable, like oil bottles and salad dressing bottles, that have found their specific use.  Brandon knows by now not to question why there are disposable bottles in the dishwasher.  We all have our vices.  I have impulses to keep other disposable items, like the twisty wire ties from produce, clear salad boxes, and plastic zip lock baggies.  I'm often talking myself out of keeping something that I probably don't need just because I hate to throw it away.  And I know, logically, that a person who lives in a small house only needs a few twisty ties around for that perfect situation where a twisty tie is called for, such as tying up vines in the garden, but it's hard to toss something that has a use, even if I already have too many.  And what better way to store my twisty ties?  A pickle jar!  

So, while doing laundry tonight, and opening a new box of detergent, I had a moment when instead of throwing the old laundry detergent scoop in the recycling, I started considering alternative uses.  Dog food scoop? Measuring... stuff?  Oh no, stop me!  What I really wish is that I didn't get a new scoop every time.  It would save me from such complicated decisions!  Truly, why wouldn't every brand offer their product without a scoop?  I'm not even suggesting they would lower their price by the cost of a scoop, but if they offered it scoop-less at the same price, some of us that are aware of how much trash and recycling we generate, and are concerned about our mental health, may opt to buy it, given the choice.  I read that whirlpool did a survey of their customers and estimated that in the US we wash the equivalent of 1,100 loads of wash every second of every day, and most of us are using more detergent than is recommended.  Now, I don't know how to relate this to boxes of detergent with a scoop sold in each community, but I'm sure it's phenomenal.  Imagine if even a small fraction of those boxes were sold without scoops, how many scoops would be saved from the land fill.  Ah, if only I were a detergent executive I could do this and save millions of handy scoops from being wasted and save my company the cost of the scoops at the same time!