Last December I wrote a post about the first of the three R's Reduce. Today I'll talk about the next R: Reuse. By the abundance of garage sales, thrift stores and charity shops it is clear that there is a culture for re-using in North America. Some call it junk, while others call it treasure. I fall somewhere in the middle. Beyond washing out sandwich bags to use again, and turning old clothing into blankets what can we really do to re-use as much as possible? I found a huge list of ideas at this site. Personally I run through ideas in my head as I'm standing in front of the garbage can or recycle bin. Can I use this for something? can I store this in an appropriate place until I need it? Some of the obvious things that I reuse are produce elastic bands and twist ties, glass jars from tomato sauce and old toothbrushes for cleaning hard to get to areas. A problem with some of us, myself included, is that we can hoard things waiting for the chance to reuse them and then we never do. So I think when we are out at garage sales we need to remember to really be honest with ourselves....will I really use this? After all we don't want to add to the problem while trying to solve it.
*graphic found here
1 comment:
Loving this! Recently I've switched too the reusable shopping bags, I feel better about my impact on the environment. Love garage sales too, some people just outgrow things, not always garbage, and I usually know someone who can put good use to someone elses "junk"... Just dont drive too close behind me on a Saturday morning, I will hit the brakes for garage sales, hard! LOL
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