« Last-Minute Holiday Gift News | Main | Resolve to Live Green in the New Year: Buy Organic »
Resolve to Live Green in the New Year: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
By Lafe | December 23, 2008
When people think about green living, I’d guess that most of them think about recycling as one of the major ways in which to be green. Recycling is certainly helpful, and admirable, and part of the equation for stretching our natural resources. But if you’re truly living green, recycle is the third of three actions you should be taking with respect to resources.
The first of the three is reduce. That means to try to eliminate the use of items like plastic bags, paper cups, and styrofoam containers. One of the best ways to do that, of course, is to invest in reusable items, such as reusable grocery bags when you’re shopping and reusable cups when you’re getting coffee, and remember to bring them with you when you’re out and about. (I find it’s not as easy to remember to bring them with you as it is to buy them in the first place! But if you make gathering your reusable items as part of your routine for leaving the house, you can develop that good habit over the long term.)
The second of the three is to reuse. If you have a plastic bag from the grocery store, you can put that bag to use in other ways. Perhaps it can carry the lunch you’re bringing from home. Perhaps there are some items you need to transfer from home to work. Whatever you can do to repurpose that bag, to get multiple uses from it, it’s better than just using it once and throwing it away.
If you do recycle, make sure that you’re following the instructions the city or recycling facility is giving you on how to prepare and set out the items, and make sure that you’re recycling only after you’ve considered reuse possibilities. Recycling’s become easier over time, which is encouraging, as it shows that we as a society have gotten serious about acknowledging we have limited resources and can be smarter about how we allocate them. This is still very much a work in progress, though, and not only is it necessary to keep practicing the three Rs, but it’s also necessary to encourage others to do it as well. The more people are doing it, the more effective we’ll collectively be.
Topics: Uncategorized |