Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Is bullshit green?


I spent $79 on the world's most expensive liquid last night--four cartridges of ink for my HP printer. The ink is cased in a card-board box, which covers a foil-lined plastic, which covers a regular plastic which covers a cellophane like plastic. The nodules from which the ink is squirted are covered by a plastic tape. Inside all that packaging, there is more packaging, ironically enough printed in green to imply that there is an environmental-friendliness to all this. A folded green envelope is wrapped in plastic and packed with an 8"x11.5" folded piece of paper printed in four color, which is essentially an ad urging me to print more pictures of someone else's family. The copy on the envelope beckons me to "Be environmentally friendly!" by mailing back (post-paid) my empty ink cartridge (one to a package)so it can ostensibly be recycled. There's another piece of tape to peel off so the envelope stays closed, and no dearth of what we used to call "booger glue" to keep the whole kit and kaboodle together. In all, literally a dozens bits of glue, plastic, paper and tape. You know, those things that will live on after the human race extinguishes itself.

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