Monday, August 17, 2009

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle


This is a great plan. It is simple, straight forward, and clear. If we all followed it with a modicum of discipline, the world would be cleaner, richer, and healthier.

It pains me to admit this but I think my family has personally raised the global temperature of the earth by about 1 degree each year for the past half a decade. The rest of you must be doing something right to have offset most of the damage we are creating. We recycle a little bit, reuse not at all, and reduce....reduce? With increasing frequency, I need to borrow neighbor's trash bins just to dispose of our extra trash.

Side Note: Today is trash collection day in my neighborhood so I had to wrestle our mountain of refuse to the curb; an unpleasant chore that spawned this post. Also, because I had go into the alley on the side of my house, I was able to get a "two-for" and take down a second spiderweb with my head this morning.

Of the three steps in this plan, "Reduce" has all the power. "Reuse" and "recycle" are helpful but almost negligible compared to reduce. Yet, it seems that "recycle" gets all the press and public support.

Are you imaginary readers reducing at all? Got any suggestions for me and my family? We need help here.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous8/17/2009

    NO reduction in our house. We consume consume consume. We do recycle a ton. I have a compost bin that I use (and nobody else does). JD..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi There,

    Thanks for posting.

    Although you are in (I presume?) the USA, check out this website - www.wasteawarescotland.org.uk

    Waste Aware Scotland provides you with helpful advice on how and why to reduce, reuse and recycle your household waste.

    Also, great to see you thinking about the 3 R's. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle represent the order in which we should try to deal with waste before disposal. The Waste Hierarchy ranks waste management options in order of sustainability. (http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/images/waste_hierarchy%20graphic.gif)

    All the best.

    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good stuff from Chris - thanks for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete