"I knew this experiment wouldn’t make a profound difference for conservation, but I felt I should do it because I had no excuse not to...."

"I had to get creative. When a restaurant furnished a napkin-wrapped fork and knife, I asked the server to exchange them for cutlery without the napkin. I’d remember to say 'No straw!' after asking for water and to make sure the veggie burger I ordered didn’t come with a wooden pick holding it together. I tried to think ahead. I carried a fork, a spoon, a plate and a bowl everywhere I went, just in case a student event served food but provided only plastic to eat with. I did what I had to, and sometimes it was awkward. At a house party (where the red Solo cup is king), I’d saunter into the kitchen, use a glass from the cupboard, and then rinse it and put it back when I was done. Five months into the experiment, after some initial reservations, I gave up toilet paper. Now I do things the way hundreds of millions (including my extended family) in India do — with water and my left hand."

From "All my trash for a year fit into two plastic bags. Here’s how I did it./Giving up plastic forks, new clothes and even toilet paper for an exercise in conservation." By Darshan Karwat, "an AAAS science and technology policy fellow at the Department of Energy and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan." In The Washington Post.

I don't know what bothers me more, the idea of a man (it can't be a woman) out and about, using various bathrooms and somehow managing to wield water with his left hand or the idea of going into someone else's house, enjoying their hospitality, and when they're serving drinks in disposable cups, sneaking off into their kitchen, opening up their cupboards, choosing one of the glasses that were never offered to him, using it, and then cleaning it only by rinsing and putting it back in the cupboard (apparently) wet. Did he touch it only with his right hand?