Because people coming to my house would be so impressed if the soap bottle was FULL. Right?
This impulse to go ahead and ditch it, get a new one--this is where some of that 25% waste comes from. There's not much ketchup in the bottle--just throw it out. The toothpaste is almost empty--toss it. Not much ice cream in the container--go ahead and have a second bowl. (Oh, wait, that's WAIST, not WASTE.)
My husband and I always take home leftovers from a restaurant. I store my shampoo bottle upside down to let the last bit drip to the bottom. I scrape the last of the honey from the jar with a spoon. Ah, the last of the honey...
These habits are sometimes a pain, and sometimes they feel cheap. I mean, if I can drink Starbucks coffee at $5/drink, I can throw out the near-empty ketchup bottle. I live in America!
Let's say my family uses 5 bottles of ketchup in a year, and I throw out the bottle when it is still 20% full. (If I were a manufacturer, I would make that last little bit hard to get out and as invisible as possible.) I am tossing the equivalent of one bottle of ketchup a year. My family really only uses four, but we buy one to throw away. One ketchup bottle is half a Starbucks drink--have priorities, people.
I was really excited yesterday when I could no longer get any soap out of the dispenser in the kitchen. The thrill of a new, FULL bottle! But I lasted almost a month using up what I had. And I think if I can find a way to balance it upside down, I can get the last capful into my new bottle.
Cheap? Maybe. But I want habits that help me always use what I have.
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