Saturday, May 23, 2009

Personal Carbon Footprint: Increased.

Hand washing technique, per doctor's intructions:
  1. Wash with lots of soap under warm running water for at least 20 seconds (previously used cold and turned off water while scrubbing).
  2. Use paper towel to dry hands and then turn off water with the paper towel (previously turned off water first, then dried hands on cloth towel)
  3. Throw away paper towel.
The bacteria I had isn't killed by anything less than warm soapy water or bleach and can live on surfaces for a long time. If you turn off the water with your bare hands, then you might as well have not washed at all. So! Question for you folks: How do I reduce my footprint without sacrificing hygiene?

Towels, sheets, napkins, and placemats must all be washed in hot water, btw.

4 comments:

Jenn said...

what about purchasing a cheap pack of clothes to dry your hands on and then throw directly into the wash. As you'll be washing your sheets and towels on hot anyway, a bunch of little towels won't make much difference. I would suggest the automotive section of the hardware store for a couple inexpensive packs of cloths.

For contamination reasons, you might want to start your own laundry pail, then you can put all the HOT wash stuff in there.

It is kinda like what I do for my cloth diapers. And yes, I do use things from the automotive department for my son's bum.

Liz Miller said...

What a great idea!!!

Angie said...

Use vinegar as a natural sanitizer for your laundry and you won't need to wash it all in hot water.

Andrea said...

I like Jenn's idea for the cloths.

And would totally not worry about teh water. You don't want to waste water, no, but washing things to kill germs is using water the way it should be, not wasting it. If you feel bad about the hand washing/laundry water use, instead of cutting back there I'd just look around the house and see if there's some other little thing you could change to offset it. Maybe get a rain barrel to collect rain water for watering the garden and lawn, and presto!