Wasteful Numbers

What ever happened to Yankee frugality? Straightening bent nails, saving string.
Is Thrift Week, a holiday which began on Ben Franklin's birthday even on the calendar anymore? When did it disappear? 

"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship," said he. That leak is not so small anymore.

We disapproved of frippery, definition according to answers.com

1. Pretentious, showy finery.
2. Pretentious elegance; ostentation.
3. Something trivial or nonessential.

We couldn't imagine wasting money on ourselves, made do or did without. It took a mighty effort to make us what we are today. 

Today in the USA:
Americans toss:

• 106,000 aluminum cans every 30 seconds. (Enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every three months—and aluminum represents less than 1 percent of our solid waste stream).
• 2 million plastic beverage bottles every 5 minutes
• 426,000 cell phones every day
• 14 % of the food we buy at the store

Americans use:

• 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags each hour
• 60,000 plastic bags we use every 5 seconds
• US airline flights distributed 1 million plastic cups every 6 hours
• 15 million sheets of office paper every 5 minutes
• 170,000 Energizer batteries produced every 15 minutes

Energy:
The average American uses more energy between the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and dinner on January 2 than the average, Tanzanian consumes in a year.

Time to rethink hyper-consumerism and get back in touch with what really matters.