Warning: my first rant

I don't feel the need to get on my soap box very often (in fact, I don't even have a soap box -- I had to borrow this one from my neighbor), but every once in a while something comes along that defies my logic and makes me crazy. And authoring a blog (albeit one that's supposed to be about quilting) means I can complain to the world instead of just pacing around my house qvetching at the cat. So today, it's this:

Photo courtesty of pledge.com

I saw a commercial recently for this handy-dandy Fabric Sweeper from Pledge. It's shedding season, and everything in my house is covered with a thin, orange and white layer of Archie's winter coat; the timing of this new product release made it seem like a gift from Housekeeping Heaven. So I got my little self to Wal-Mart and picked one up. At $4.62, it's an OK price, but I figured if one little tool could do the job of my washable lint roller/rubber glove/vacuum combo method, it was well worth it (I found out later there's a $2 off coupon offered on the website).

And you know what? It works great! It has these two parallel half-rollers that, using a back-and-forth motion, wick the hair up into the clear plastic reservoir to rid your upholstery from pet hair (and threads!). They proclaim on its packaging that it's "quick & easy," and it is!

But here's where the wonderfullness stops. Because the clear plastic reservoir? Doesn't. Open. Which makes this handy-dandy Fabric Sweeper a non-biodegradeable, landfill-contributing, $4.62 one-hit wonder that's going to last about a day and a half. It's "disposable." When you've filled the thing up in three sweeps around your family room, I guess you're supposed to go out and buy another one?

It even comes with a warning: "Do not try to empty or disassemble disposable sweeper." Apparently SC Johnson thinks our environment could benefit from the addition of an organic substance like cat hair permanently encased in impenetrable polypropylene; they don't even suggest you recycle it -- you're instructed to "Simply throw the sweeper away when it is full."

My question is this: would it have killed them to make it so you could empty it out? Or did they think it was so great that people would buy it again and again instead of feeling suckered, like I did? Did they really think that something like this needed to be disposable? And didn't anybody in their myriad of focus groups ever say "Lemme get this straight: I can only use it ONCE? How stupid is that?"

If I could use this thing over and over, I'd be singing its praises to the blogosphere and recommending it left and right instead of ranting about how wasteful and expensive (yes, even with a $2 off coupon) and un-green it is. I guess if you've got money to "simply throw away" and don't give a crap about the environment, go buy yourself a case of these things. I'm going back to the old way.

OK, I'm done. My neighbor wants her soap box back, anyway.

I'd return it free of cat hair, but my Fabric Sweeper's already full.