Over the years I have certainly thought about the concept “healing by a thousand bandaids”, as a counter idiom to “death by a thousand cuts”, while not writing as much about it. I have blog notes for various things in the spirit of this and have used it consistently at work to describe the idea of using small bits of automation for a greater impact. In short, if you do something (or stop doing something) a few times it has no impact. But if you do it a lot and more to the point, thousands or millions of people do the same, it can have a greater impact.
On my recent road trip I frequently got a couple hash browns from McDonalds for breakfast. In a few cases I stopped for fast food appetizers to eat while driving. Invariably I received the food and found napkins stuffed in the bag on top of it. That means that one or more napkins had grease soaking through them. As a result many people will throw those away unused if the grease has saturated enough of the napkin. In many cases it saturates enough of the paper bag so it can’t be recycled either. Talk about a waste…
I know many fast food workers are not happy with their job. It is a means to an end and nothing else, so getting them to care can be difficult. However, if they were trained to stuff the napkins down the side of the bag to be between the bag and container of fries, hash browns, or jalapeño poppers? Collectively that would conserve tens of thousands of trees over a year or two.
I see this happen at McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, an Arby’s but know it happens at about every place out there. If stuffing the napkins down the side of the bag could be trained and become muscle memory that is the ‘easiest’ fix I can imagine. I know, easier said than done.
Additionally, I observed this during COVID first but some restaurants got savvy and stopped throwing in condiments, plastic utensils, and napkins. Instead they asked if you needed them since many people were carrying out and using their own plates, utensils, and napkins at home. Collectively that had to have saved a lot of material that would have been disposed otherwise. For a long time I have done the same when I get carry-out. I explicitly tell them that I don’t need all of the extra disposables. Yet another thing that can have a huge impact if everyone did this.
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