Remembering the Reduce and Reuse

Recycling is slow to catch on in my neck of the woods. Seriously slow. My neighbors think I'm crazy for recycling all that I do. But this fall, for some unknown reason, it seems that a few of them suddenly began recycling some of their paper and plastics. There sure are a lot of plastic water bottles in that recycling, too. Which got me to thinking ...

The saying goes: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Listed in order of importance. If you reduce the amount of waste created you should have less to recycle, right? And if you reuse the majority of what you would waste, there is even less to recycle. And finally, if you do end up having some waste, then you should dispose of it in the appropriate recycling facility.

But all I seem to hear about is the last part, recycle. It seems the first two, the most important two, have become lost in our current society. Even during the frenzy of Earth Day education in April I have not noticed much, if any, literature or talk about the trilogy: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. I just hear about recycle.

Personally, I need to work on the reduce part some more. But all in all I think my family is pretty good. I do not buy single serving products if I can possibly get around it. I've even switched to blocks of cheese for my kids to snack on rather than purchase "cheese sticks" as we call them. My kids would rather have the plastic encased cheese sticks, but I figure I have to start somewhere, and unfortunately some of these choices are not going to make them happy. Or me, because frankly it was so easy for them to grab a cheese stick on their own; now I have to help them cut off a chunk of cheese.

But there are many other venues that I need to address when it comes to the reduce aspect of the trilogy. Cosmetics and personal care products always seem to be over-packaged. (Lets not get into the ingredients at this point; I'm working on that slowly.) Even my "green" products are packaged in plastics and sometimes plastic inside plastic. And often the plastic is something I am not able to easily recycle. Raw ingredients for foods are usually packaged fairly minimally, but wouldn't bulk purchases, gathered with a reusable container be so much better?

I would like to reduce my packaging consumption, but as of right now I have no good plan of attack. Stores in my neck of the woods are completely tied to the demands of the masses, and these masses do not care about such issues. They all worship the single serving concept for its ease of control and portability. (Although, I am guilty of disposable bags for snack 5 times a week, so maybe I should not be so huffy!)

And the reuse part. Now there is one we could definitely improve upon. Glass jars should have some re-use, right? I have tried to use them to store left overs, but unless you have a soup, sauce, or other liquid type left over they are really awkward. With small kids in the house (and a less than graceful me) it makes me nervous to have too many things stored in glass; I'm afraid something will fall and break. I've tried to save cardboard from various boxes and such, but I really do not need the clutter in my house. And as it happens, it seems recycling day always happens the day before we attempt some project that would benefit from one of those disposed of cereal boxes. I do reuse the yogurt containers, but I recently stopped buying yogurt and making it myself. So that is a reduce part, right?

I am going to have to make a conscious effort to remember the entire trilogy and Reduce first, then Reuse. And maybe I will start talking about it some, just to get it back in the mainstream thought process. Let me go grab my Crunchy Crusader Cape ....