It’s another typical day where I only threw away the sticker on the apple. Today, I also put that old napkin from ice cream in my pocket and walked 8 minutes to the nearest compost bin on campus. Seems weird to walk so far to put something in the compost, but I feel more accomplished by having it gone from my designated challenge trash bin.
Since I haven’t been putting much into a trash can in general, because of this challenge, I feel bad every time I use a paper towel in the bathroom because they can be easily composted. University of Michigan’s recycling and composting guide even lists paper towels as compostable, so I wonder if they’ll ever add them to the bathrooms.
In some places in California, they have compost bins in bathrooms, so I know it’s possible! This topic also got me thinking about the big debate between paper towels and hand dryers (I've contemplated this before). While looking through a couple research databases, I found this study showing that paper towels are better than warm air dryers and even better than jet air dryers in terms of reducing microbial spread. I also found this study showing that jet hand dryers are better than paper towels in terms of reducing environmental impact, but that warm air dryers and paper towels are about equal.
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