Never Buy a Tube Again!
No, this isn't an announcement of a new tire technology that will forever prevent flats. . .
Last Saturday, my brother and I went for a ride from New York City to Nyack, New York. The route is pretty popular with city cyclists, to the point where there's practically a traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge pedestrian/bike path early in the morning.
On the return trip, I noticed that there were at least a half-dozen discarded tubes on the ground and in a garbage can at the entrance to the bridge path.
Do that many people really throw out tubes when they get a flat? I could have picked up enough tubes there to last me for the next ten years, easily. I would have, except that my under-seat pack was pretty stuffed already, and there wasn't room for a tube.
When I get a flat, I replace the tube with the spare I carry, and patch the punctured tube when I get home. Of course, if I get more than one flat, I'll have to patch the next by the side of the road, but no big deal. Seems silly, wasteful, and environmentally destructive to simply discard a tube because it has a puncture.