Toiletries

I have an infestation of hotel toiletries. It's hard to live in the modern world without being constantly aware of the amount of waste we generate.  Ever since I first read The Story of Stuff (and probably before that) I've had a hard time with waste preferring instead reuse in all its forms.

"The largest and perhaps most annoying category of products we're wasting in the United States is containers and packaging."  The Story of Stuff (194)

So hotel toiletries are always a little pea under the mattress of my otherwise pure joy of nice hotels. the ratio of packaging to shampoo is just obscene and I always imagine them being thrown out when I've just used one dollop. So I take them home with the noble intent to at least use them completely before they are thrown away.  It's an uphill battle.  They accumulate faster than I can use them and now Marie Kondo is telling me they are blocking my path to joy so I'm saying goodbye to all but my favorites. They were always going to end up in the trash in any case.  It turns out most tiny shampoos bottles are supplied by the same giant company that provides everything your hotel needs (the "green collections" are not the kind of green that reduces waste).  Just when I was getting demoralized I stumbled on Clean the World.  It turns out hotels can enroll to have their waste soap and plastic bottles collected and repurposed for those in need.  I wonder if I can start a California branch.