Reduce, Reuse THEN Recycle
Whenever you hear the phrase Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, should it really be Reduce, Reuse then Reccle? The order in which the items in that phrase seems arbitrary, but it’s actually quite important.
Reduce
This is the first thing we should all do to save waste from ending up in landfills. By reducing our consumption of goods, especially those that we do not need, is key to ensure that we are not wasteful. Many of the items we buy are just so unnecessary and only are costing us more and more money. I talked about the big issue of food waste some time ago and you would be staggered to hear of all the food that goes to waste every day in our country. Food is not the only problem in a world where we are buying electronics, furniture and so much more.
Reuse
After doing our best to reduce the amount we consume, the next step is to reuse. We all need to buy stuff, but a great way to save money and help reduce the amount of new products manufactured is to reuse. We can all make a difference if we can reuse the items we already have and buy used items from places like consignment shops and Craigslist.
Recycle
Recycling should only be done after the first two. We are often lead to believe that we have to recycle our items immediately after we use them, but there are so many instances when we can reuse items. It’s easy to throw that glass drinking bottle in the recycle bin, but it can be reused for many uses and help avoid the use of additional plastic water bottles. This is just one of many examples in which reducing or recycling should take precedence to recycling.
Comments
-
April 28th, 2010
-
April 28th, 2010Trackback from : All Things Eco Blog Carnival Volume Ninety Nine » Focus Organic.com
Wonderful post! Coincidentally, I posted the second in a series of three posts on Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. If you have a minute to check it out, I’d be interested in your opinion. I’m going to leave a link in the comments section of that post to your article. Here’s the direct link:
http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/2008/08/reduce-reuse-and-recycle-part-2.html
Thanks!
Good reminder post. While I do a decent job of recycling everything I can, I likely don’t reuse enough and I can reduce some of my consumption. It does seem that recycling gets all the attention out of the 3 R’s. Reducing overall consumption and waste is much better though.