Reduce, Reuse and Recycle at Home

Reduce, reuse, recycle! These words are hard to get away from today as more attention is being paid to protecting the environment. Recycling and “going green” are popular topics which everyone is talking about and for a good reason. Recycling helps prevent waste and therefore helps prevent damage to our environment.

Did You Know?

Here is one simple example of how recycling can make our environment better. It's scary that we don't already understand the impact of these lifestyle choices. Going green and recycling are really more about a shift in mindset rather than radical lifestyle changes.

If we are able to recycle just 1 ton of paper (think about our newspapers), then we will save 17 mature trees … and that is pretty obvious. What we don't understand is that we'll also save  7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil and 4,100 kilowatt-hours of electricity. That is enough energy to power the average American home for five months!

Now that you are beginning to realize the benefits of recycling, here are some actions you can take to help. These simple things you can do around your home to contribute to a better environment for our children.

• Learn about your local recycling center, what materials they accept and the options you have to get recycling materials to them. 

• Label recycling bins to collect and separate the following:
  • Metal: soda cans, tin cans, foil pans
  • Glass: clean food jars and bottles
  • Plastic: shampoo, household cleaners
  • Paper: newspaper, magazines, cardboard, office paper, mail

• On your next trip to the grocery store, buy reusable grocery bags. After you unpack your groceries, put the bags near the door and take them out to the car on your next trip. It will take a few weeks to make this a habit but then you won't need to think about it any longer (except when you get to the store without your bags which I've done).

• If you have a nice big yard and you love to garden, start a compost pile for:
  • Recycled food scraps, coffee grounds, leaves, grass clippings, shredded newspaper and wood chips
  • DO NOT compost: fats, pet droppings, animal products, ash, or oak leaves

• Buy fresh items that do not require packaging at the grocery store.

• Donate clothing & useful objects that you no longer use, to benefit someone else and reduce the raw materials that go into producing these clothes.

• Buy products that include recycled materials. Their with labels will tell you how much of their content comes from recycled materials.  You will find the following terms on product packaging:
  • Post-consumer waste materials – come from used containers, packaging and other discarded (recycled) items used in many food or other packaged products.
    
  • Pre-consumer waste materials – include any type of waste from manufacturing processes, i.e. overruns where the recycled material was never delivered to consumers.
    

• Use a water filter to purify tap water and stop buying bottled water as bottled water generates huge amounts of waste in our landfills.