Granted, there are plenty of times when I curse our recycling (we have a nasty habit of going 4-5 months between trips to the recycling center), but every time we come home from the recycling center with empty bins bumping around in the truck bed, I'm happy that we took the time to wash, sort, and drop off our recycling so all of that paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and more can get another lease on life. I try to do my best to reduce our use of non-recyclable household supplies by washing and reusing plastic bags and always bring my own shopping bags to the grocery stores. I also opt for eco-friendly cleaners like Mrs. Meyers. All that being said, we're far from perfect recyclers and I always having a niggling feeling whenever we go to the dumpster that we produce more trash than we really should.
I'm not sure why I've been thinking about this lately, although if I had to guess why recycling's been on my mind, it's probably because the shed is currently oozing recycling and today's activities will include a much needed trip to the recycling center. I was also inspired by this post from Food in Jars which highlighted bee's wrap, a reuseable alternative to plastic wrap.
Realizing that's there's a viable alternative to plastic wrap got me thinking about some of my "green" trouble spots. We use a lot of paper products like paper towels and Kleenex when we could be using reuseable towels or cloth napkins. I always opt for the store stocked plastic bags when buying bulk, whether I'm buying produce or basmati rice, when I could be bringing my own glass jars or using reuseable mesh produce bags. And I use plastic wrap every now and then, when I could be using bee's wrap.
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| Reuseable paper towels by Mamamade |
How about you? What are your best tips for reducing, reusing, and recycling? What are your "going green" problem areas?
We have curbside pick-up on our recyclables, so it makes it easy to do. I recycle what I can and also use cloth bags for my shopping. It just makes sense to reuse and recycle as much as we can. But I am also a realist abut the natural cycles of the Earth. It has been through many climate changes in our millions of years of existence. Ice ages, rain forests turning into deserts ... it's going to happen again no matter what we do. Meanwhile yes, let's be good stewards of the earth.
ReplyDeleteWe tend to excel at recycling and using reusable grocery bags, but other areas I fail miserably in. For example- I have not (and don't want to) attempt cloth diapering. It just grosses me out. However. I am conscious to buy the most eco-friendly diaper options for the little one. Beyond that I am trying to reduce the amount of paper products that I do use. Thank you for the reminder to be more vigilant about it!
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Interesting, I've never heard of bee's wrap. We recycle--it's much easier to do in the city with our recycling being picked up every 2 weeks. And I KNOW we produce more trash than we should. I just read a story about a family that only produces about 2 handfuls of trash PER YEAR! I'm with you though, we do some things, but could be doing more. Good post to get me motivated to try harder!
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