Folks up in Liberty made the news this past week with a six-week experiment involving 100 families who volunteered to test the new Dixie Rinse & ReUse Disposable Stoneware.

The trial run was the first opportunity for town families to test the new, revolutionary disposable plate, said the Dixie Company's public relations department.

It has been in the news recently that a celebration was held for participating families at the end of the trial. Also shown was a photo of the company-run celebration where Dixie representatives gave a $5,000 donation to Sullivan's United Way Executive Director Linda Cellini.

The idea was that the volunteering families were to use the disposable dishware a few times a week, keep a daily journal of mealtime activities and a running evaluation of the disposable stoneware. Each family checked in with the company weekly.

It's tough to get people to come out to vote, but how the picture changes when a slick piece of public relations presents a chance to be experimented upon. For some strange reason, people like to be experimented upon.

The results were lauded at the celebration. Most also agreed that they saved time cleaning up-20,000 minutes worth in sum total-which allowed them to spend more time with each other. Families claimed that spending less time washing greasy and sticky dishes created fewer family feuds over whose turn it was to do the dishes.

Ninety six percent of the participants said they liked using the Dixie product because it gave them a choice between washing and reusing the plates or just throwing them away.

What I question about the experiment is the message it gives to efforts to preserve the environment. The activity of throwing away the dinner dishes is high on the trash chain if not the food chain. It seems to me that the experiment encourages people to add to the monumental growth of garbage in our landfills. What it saves in terms of time with the family or otherwise, it squanders in terms of a cleaner, safer environment.

We as a society have become a menace to the rest of the world with our dominance over the resources of the earth for so small a population of the earth. It is unconscionable to keep doing what we are doing. It is certainly unconscionable to support efforts by corporate America to add to the trend under the guise of helping create quality family life. Such a rationalization to hide the true motive-making a buck-is a joke.

I have a friend who does all she can to avoid adding to the waste that we as a society amass. She buys only fresh vegetables, no packaged stuff. She likes the Sunday New York Times but borrows one from a friend after he uses it. She bought her husband a shaving mug with soap so as to avoid using an aerosol can. (He likes it better, he said.)

What are we ever to do about this problem when efforts like the Dixie project are lauded to the skies? Shame on them.

Tom Kane, News Reporter