Posh Towel

When living in a busy, polluted city like Lima, it is nice to treat oneself occasionally. My treat is to have breakfast every Thursday with the English speaking Rotary club at the Marriot Hotel in Miraflores.

However, this can make me feel guilty at times; why should I enjoy such luxury when those around me suffer such poverty? This feeling can be provoked by seemingly trivial things in the developing world where privilege and poverty live cheek by jowl.

This stack of neatly arranged, perfectly white hand towels in the gents at the Marriot provokes such a feeling. However, the question uppermost in my mind when I see them is "which is most damaging to the environment - the re-usable cloth towels or the paper towels in the dispenser?"

How can an environmentally aware person make the decision which one to use?

Lima, Peru, July 2008