Three Rs: How we do it

Recycle

When I was growing up, the recycling effort was just being introduced to school aged children as something they could do as a fun project at home. This was children's work, it seemed, well in my house anyway. We recycled cans. We had a lot of cans from sodas and beer that my folks would have now and then. We could go with my dad sometimes to the Recycling Circus which was (is it still there?) under an overpass. I was extremely disappointed that it wasn't really a circus. Something has stuck with me, though. My household recycles and I'm probably the most passionate about it. We have a small trash bin under the kitchen sink and collect rinsed out cans, jars, and bottles. I try to crunch cans and milk bottles as best as I can to make more room. Our city provides free recycling bins and doesn't charge us for collection of these. We usually have only a few items in the glass bin, but our plastic and tin bin overflows and we are often putting the extra plastic items in a bag off to the side.

Reduce

My household is trying to use less paper products during our everyday lives. Sometimes, paper plates and paper towels are necessary, but we try to use them sparingly. I also found that using refillable liquid hand soap is a little way to reduce waste. We aren't throwing out bottle after bottle. Also, Method has my favorite refill method (no pun intended.)

We also have purchased five reusable grocery store bags and use them religiously. We get five cents per bag discount and have stopped collecting plastic bags. When we do need an extra bag, I opt for a paper one that I can use to collect the paper recycling or for crafts. That probably belongs in the next section.

Reuse

I've started a collection of various items like empty paper towel tubes, extra paper bags, scraps of wrapping paper, etc. My daughter and I use them for craft times. We also reuse any plastic grocery bags as puppy-poop bags and line our small trash cans with them instead of buying bags for that.

Our green trash bin on an average collection day is only half full, if that (provided there's no yard waste). We are contributing half the trash of an average household (in my neighborhood, in my estimation) to the landfill. I'm extremely proud of us.