Sustainable Development Gone Too Far

I always laugh at energy and natural resources companies’ desire to go green in the office. It seems somewhat hypocritical that as these companies are, let’s say, altering the environment to obtain oil, gas, copper, coal, timber, iron ore, diamonds, etc., they attempt to do everything they can to minimize their impact on the environment in the office. These include:

• Eight different kinds of recycling bins (try finding an actual trash can, it’s nearly impossible)
• Recycled paper for the printers
• An immutable printer default to double-sided printing
• E-mail footers reminding you to “Think Before You Print”
• Re-usable glasses, mugs, plates, and utensils (no paper, plastic, or Styrofoam allowed)
• Lights on timers (It’s bad enough to be the last one in the office, but to be the last one in the office and have the lights go out on you really sucks.)
• Strict policies on shutting down computers at night (People walk around and check everybody’s desk and occasionally reward those who comply with a surprise gift for the morning i.e. Stubby holder with fun safety facts reminding you of things like maintaining three points of contact when ascending or descending stairs.)
• Signs posted everywhere (on recycled paper of course) reminding you to think of what you can do today to reduce your impact on the environment

That’s all fine but there is one thing that I really feel is taking sustainable development too far: restricting water flow in the bathroom. Communal bathrooms? Just say no to low flow toilets and dual flush toilets; do you really want to walk into a stall after a stranger who has decided to use the half flush button to save water?

But that’s not all because I swear the sinks at my office also have “sustainable” water flow. Anyone who has been with me at a sink, either in the kitchen or a restaurant bathroom, knows that I take a ridiculously long time to wash my hands. But it’s not my fault, I’ve been trained well. In fact, the Mayo Clinic recommends rubbing your soap-lathered hands vigorously for 20 seconds, and that is exactly what I do. But the sinks at work? They dislike my proper hand washing technique immensely. Because after a solid five seconds, the water flow either reduces to a trickle or gets really hot and scalds my hands. I am considering this to be a not so subtle way to tell me to go green with my water use. Because obviously reducing the office’s water intake is going to help counter the environmental impact of work that goes on in the field everyday. Maybe if we all skip washing our hands altogether, we can offset the damage caused by BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels of oil a day?