Raising the BAR.. again

I'll admit that I am far from "green" as new standards go. We recycle the obvious, and we try not to overuse paper products... but I am not as forward thinking as perhaps Al Gore wishes I were. Sometimes I get a guilty tickle at the back of my mind as I shop... thinking that it's time to bring the recyclable bags with me to the grocery store or to reconsider the type of household cleansers I use.

This week it was about plastic. As I grabbed a refill of liquid soap for my kitchen and bathroom soap dispensers, I pictured landfills overflowing with these colorful containers promising "softer hands" and antibacterial benefits. Naiively I thought I was doing a good thing by puchasing the mondo refill container instead of picking up the 2 for $3 dispensers. But really now. When did bar soap become so passe?

Growing up, all I remember is bar soap. There was still a crazy variety -- for some reason we seem to think that cleaning our hands requires frangrance, texture and shape selections. As if our individuality hinged on our soap choices. We didn't have liquid soap (okay, so I am totally dating myself here... let's look past that part, ok?) Washing your hands involved picking up the bar of soap, moving it around between your hands and scrubbing. Hmmm... somewhere along the line, someone obviously thought that was too much work, so they invented liquid soap. So much easier, right? You pump it into your hand, move it around between your hands and scrub. SOooooo much easier.

Somehow the whole American population jumped on the bandwagon. Every single person I know has liquid soap in their homes. EVERY ONE. The dispensers are just adorable....little ladybugs sliding up and down inside to encourage your children to wash. Slinky, curvy bottles of perfumey liquid so that you smell delicious AND clean. They are different colors, different smells, different shapes. Frankly, that bar soap sitting there in its bland cardboard box seems.... well, just so unattractive.

Could switching back to bar soap be one of the easiest green choices to make? Why don't we hear more about this one? Until they create a cardboard container for the liquid stuff, I'm going to have to say -- Put down the plastic dispensers, folks, and no one gets hurt. It's time to raise the bar... again.