The WaPo featured a story about a guy who decided to stop generating trash – for the "good of the environment," of course.  He cut down to about 7 pounds of garbage a year.  One of the ways he did this was to stop using toilet paper.

Everything apart from food scraps (which I’d compost), toothpaste and soap (which were too difficult to recover), and toilet paper counted as trash or recycling. I collected my refuse — concert tickets, stickers, plastic tags, packaging, glass, you name it — and didn’t throw it away.

I knew this experiment wouldn’t make a profound difference for conservation, but I felt I should do it because I had no excuse not to. ...

Humans have caused daunting problems: The polar ice caps are melting, a manmade mass extinction is underway, the oceans are full of trash, surface mines are tearing up the countryside and indigenous people’s cultures are eroding thanks to global commerce. 

This is ridiculous.  There is no mass extinction, and surface mines consume only a tiny fraction of our entire landmass – though it is true that our indigenous culture is eroding thanks to illegal immigration.

This man is suffering from government-taught hysteria about the environment.  Look at what extremes he goes to:

When a restaurant furnished a napkin-wrapped fork and knife, I asked the server to exchange them for cutlery without the napkin. I’d remember to say “No straw!” after asking for water and to make sure the veggie burger I ordered didn’t come with a wooden pick holding it together. I tried to think ahead. I carried a fork, a spoon, a plate and a bowl everywhere I went, just in case a student event served food but provided only plastic to eat with. I did what I had to, and sometimes it was awkward. 

Once, as I was opening a can of mango pulp that predated the experiment, the lid popped off and landed behind the fridge. When I reached blindly for it, I cut a smooth, deep gash in my finger and used Band-Aids to stanch the blood.

And things get even more nutty when he stops using toilet paper:

Five months into the experiment, after some initial reservations, I gave up toilet paper. Now I do things the way hundreds of millions (including my extended family) in India do — with water and my left hand.

This is very dangerous.  Excrement contains all kinds of diseases.  Smearing your hand with it is a recipe for getting sick and spreading sickness to others.  He cites India as if it is a model for hygiene.  It isn't.  They have many more illnesses than we do, and bad hygiene is part of the problem.

The irony is that the man is worried about an imaginary problem, the environment, while destroying his own mental and physical health and living the life of a homeless man.

Exit question: After reading this article, would you have second thoughts about shaking hands with a liberal?

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.