So you bring your own reusable bags to the grocery store. Great. You recycle. Excellent. But the effort doesn’t stop there. If you really want to make an impact on the waste stream, you need to start rethinking what you buy.
If you are going to buy toilet paper, and I hope that you are, then you should make sure that it is made with recycled paper. Not just recycled paper, but post consumer recycled content. It is always important to look at post consumer content, because if we do not provide an economic outlet for recycled content, then collecting these materials end up being a waste of time. Stories are often circulating around stock piles of plastics and other recyclables that have no home. By looking for products that are made from these materials, we create an incentive for the concept of recycling and a market for those foods.
Okay, so you are buying products with recycled content. Now what? How much packaging do the products that you buy have in the first place? By choosing products that feature less packaging, you reduce your impact by requiring less raw materials in the first place.
The mantra of the new economy is reduce, reuse, recycle. The key to making this mantra meaningful is the priority we give each step. By reducing what we buy, we lower our need for resources. You can make it even easier by buying product with less packaging. For example, I buy a brand of shaving cream that has a small cap that covers only the push top. By choosing this brand, I use less plastic with every can I buy. Over a lifetime that can really add up. I buy toothpast that has the smallest or no box. Next I try to find a secondary use for all the products that I buy. Margarine containers hold leftovers. Jars hold buttons. A chipped mug holds my pens. By finding a secondary use for these products, we divert utems from the waste strem as well as reduce our need for raw materials. Last comes recycle. We all need to recycle as much as humanly possible, but to really make a difference we need to close the loop and buy products that use the recycled materials.
To reduce waste, we need to look at what we buy first, before we figure out how to dispose of it. For more great ideas check out http://42explore.com/recycle.htm
I was glad I read this one today, I hadn’t really paid that much attention to some of these things you mentioned. There are times I’m pretty oblivious to the items I buy because I find myself in such a hurry, but you’re right, when you think about it, it’s so easy. Toothpaste with no box, shaving cream with smaller caps, simple things that are easy to spot and don’t require too much thought once you realize it.