Small crimes against the planet

Marvellous rant against single-serve coffee filters and other idiocies in today's Grauniad. This is a pet hate of mine — the can't-live-without items brought to us by the Economic Imperative, aka the eternal drive to come up with new ways to get money out of jaded consumers. What can you sell them when they already have everything... oh yes! Refrigerated butter dishes!

Not to mention disposable cameras, which of course the whole world loves. But really. Before they came on the market, nobody ever thought "gee, what this wedding really needs is a camera at each table so all the drunken guests can take hundreds of almost identical crappy out-of-focus shots and then *throw the whole thing away*!". And now that we all have digital cameras and cameraphones, they're even less useful. But somehow the disposable camera has become one of those widely accepted things, like disposable razors (why why why?). How much plastic goes into them every year, and how much cardboard goes into their packaging? How much do they add to landfill? How much would we not care if they disappeared from the market overnight?

The only disposable product I really like is of course the humble tissue. Because hankies are just gross. Disposable nappies are no doubt a great boon to parents too — but cloth is seriously underrated. (FYI, I have spent a year of my life changing nappies almost constantly. I'm not mouthing off on something I have no experience of.) For the rest... disposable is a dirty word.