Less Choice Please.
Yes, I can (and do) personally make better choices, but why not make it harder for me to be wasteful or lazy or unhealthy by not offering me the choice in the first place?
I want my grocery store to offer absolutely no grocery bags. I don’t want to be given the option of using something that needs recycling or will stay in a landfill for years. If I forget my own bags, it will be inconvenient, but fine. But I will most likely do better at remembering my own bags or boxes.
Why is only some paint low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs)? Why can I even buy paint that is ‘high’ in those? Where is the upside to paint that smells bad and is mildly toxic to breathe?
I want my milk and beer and soda (and laundry detergent, shampoo, hand/dish soap) to only come in glass containers that I take back to the store for them to wash and refill. Don’t let me even buy them in plastic.
No more plastic dust jackets for books. Just the cardboard cover will be fine.
I don’t want restaurants to offer ‘to-go’ containers. If I want to take food home, I can bring my own container.
And while we’re at it, give me half as much food in the chain-style restaurants. Even if we take home the leftovers (and there are always leftovers because the meals are huge), it’s usually not food we need to eat twice in one week. Smaller portions only.
Also, don’t give me a straw. I can bring my own or go without. Seriously, people have been drinking for thousands of years without straws. We will be fine, even if the ice briefly touches our top lip.
Why aren’t all cars hybrid at this point? We’ve had that technology for decades. Why can I still buy fully-gasoline cars?
Offer only paper bags only for cereal, bread, dried pasta, cookies, nuts, candy. And preferably just give me the bulk bins for most of those things - I can get as little or as much as I want. Plus, we do not need an entire aisle of different cereals. It’s one meal a day. (Ok, fine, sometimes it’s dinner too).
Paper cones for cut flowers in the store - no plastic is needed for that.
Put solar panels and electric vehicle chargers on every new house. Why make the homeowner have to decide and pay for that later? Just…you know….make it so.
Regulate a maximum amount of salt-per-serving in food. It’s insane how much salt is in stuff and I’m tired of having to look at all the labels of anything I buy in a packet (which is not much, but some things!) If I have some sort of sweating disorder and need lots of salt, I have some on the table at home.
Why don’t all appliances meet the energy star guidelines? Why even sell things that don’t? Why give us the choice to own them?
The number of options for health insurance is nuts. Give me three tiers: catastrophic only, medium with some co-pays, the full-everything. Or just make health insurance standard for everyone, offered through the government like every other western democracy.
Make sure every outside ‘security’ light comes with a little cover so the light points down and not into other people’s windows or upwards to mess up migrating birds. Don’t allow us to make light pollution a choice.
Where nobody should limit our choices: books, vegetables, ways to stay fit, art, ways to vote, reproductive decisions, fashion, ways to participate, careers, spirituality……ideas.
Ok so - I agree with MOST of those very clever ideas.... ;)