Revisiting "Common Sense..." (4 of 5)

The 3 R's

My wife and I incorporate the 3 R’s into our daily lives not only because it is a great way to green our world, reduce America’s dependence on oil, and save a few bucks at the same time, but because we want to be good role models for our little girl. I’ll share with you a few of our examples.

The first R is reduce, of course; reduce the amount of waste we generate. It’s completely dumbfounding how much packaging goes into products. Couldn’t we all do without a little more cardboard and plastic wrap in America’s landfills? To do our part to reduce this problem, my family buys in bulk when possible. An example I mentioned in the original post, is purchasing blocks of cheese instead of the prepackaged individual sliced or grated cheese. It sounds like a stupid, nit-picky thing, but it is as fundamentally sound and simple as Obama suggesting Americans properly inflate their automobile tires. The little things do add up. Cheese does not go bad overnight and I don’t feel the need to pay a couple of extra dimes to save myself from a grated knuckle. I keep a supply of band-aides on hand.

Another example, we don’t purchase bottled water. The United States has some of the safest, cleanest drinking water in the world. What a colossal waste of resources needed to make plastic bottles from petroleum, fill them with water, and then ship them cross country so that someone can drink ice cold Vermont tap water in California.

Ideally, I would like to see Americans take it to the next level. First, stop purchasing bottled water. Then, all sports drinks, juices, etc., anything that can be sold as a powder or concentrate should be purchased in that form in order to save the energy necessary to ship the hydrated product. It takes little effort on our part to supply a container and add water to reconstitute a sports drink if it means saving energy in shipping and wasted packaging.

The second R is reuse. Those plastic bottles I mentioned... well, our family is not perfect. When we are away from home for a long weekend at a tournament we may purchase a sports drink from the concession stand. While this is an example of sending vendors the incorrect message of how we want their product packaged, we do save face and a shred of dignity by reusing the bottle. That bottle becomes our water bottle for future games or hikes. Nalgene water bottles and aluminum canisters have become trendy in the light of wasteful disposable water containers. They are good secondary option, but as I still have plenty of used bottles floating around the house, I think we’ll just reuse the plastic.

Another example of reuse: in the spring of this year we invested in reusable grocery bags (a whole dollar!) that we take with us every time we go to the store. To amplify the energy savings we walk and take numerous small trips to the store every week. This saves a couple quarters at the pump, burns a few calories, gets us out of the house, and prepares the little girl for her afternoon nap.

The third R is recycling. We do accumulate plastic bags despite the fact we went to reusable bags. So, we hang on to them and put them in a recycling bin at the local Safeway. But we don't stop with plastic bags, we also save newspapers, magazines, steel cans, aluminum, and plastic jugs. The only major waste product that we do not recycle is glass. It’s disappointing, but there is no place in Ravalli County that will accept glass, steel cans, or plastic jugs. There is also no curbside pickup. In response to this, we store steel, aluminum, and plastic and make an annual drive to Missoula to recycle. The amount of money we receive for trading in our aluminum cans at Pacific Recycling pays for the trip.

Having shared these few examples with you, I must admit that we are not perfect in our practice of the 3 R’s. We do not buy all products with the least amount of packaging available. We will buy a sport drink on occasion and we like the microbrews which happen to come in glass bottles. But the point, like all of my suggestions, is that we try. We actively try to incorporate reduce, reuse, and recycle, despite inconveniences. That is the least of what is asked of anyone, that we just try to do our part to make our space in this world a little better.

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Common Sense Things We Can Do To Decrease America’s Reliance On Oil (and Save a Few Bucks) (Part 9 of 10)

The 3 R’s

We live in a disposable society. We buy new clothes when we haven’t worn out the old ones. We throw away extra food when we’ve eaten our fill. It’s a sad truth, but Americans are a wasteful people. I think we could all benefit from a few “Back in my day…” stories from grandparents who grew up in leaner times. Luckily, a simple set of rules for improving our wasteful habits is already laid out. Just incorporate the three R’s into your daily routine: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Reduce. There are many ways to implement this rule into your daily life, but it starts with shopping smart. Purchase goods that use less packaging, especially plastic, because guess what, if it’s plastic it’s made from oil and it takes oil to get it to the store. For example, instead of buying pre-shredded cheese for your salad or tacos, buy a block of cheddar and grate it yourself. Cheese doesn’t go bad overnight, you save packaging material, and by buying in bulk, you save a little money at the same time. Another example, instead of buying bottled water, get a home filtration system. 60 million disposable plastic bottles per day are disposed of in the U.S. alone and millions of gallons of fuel are wasted transporting filtered tap water around the world. Not only is it wasteful, but it doesn’t make economical sense. Why pay two dollars a bottle for filtered water when America has some of the safest drinking water in the world and it comes out of the tap for fractions of a cent?

Reuse. The grocery industry shares responsibility with consumers for the wasteful “paper or plastic” question at the end of the checkout lane. We’ve gotten used to disposable bags, but grocers and consumers are seeing the light and jumping on the green bandwagon. There is a new niche market that sells reusable shopping bags; some are even 'fashionable'. Chain grocers like Safeway and Albertson’s sell their own reusable bags for a small price and sometimes offer them free during promotions. Safeway has an in-store recycling program where you can bring in used plastic grocery bags also. Less “paper or plastic?” means the store saves a little money, a few ounces of oil are saved for other purposes, and a few trees are saved from the mill.

Recycle. Everyone knows to separate paper from plastic and steel from aluminum, but there is a form of recycling that Nature practices everyday, composting. Composting removes kitchen, garden, and yard waste from the landfill and yields an organic rich material. All you need is a little space dedicated to it. You can actively compost, passively compost, compost with worms, use bins, or just pile the refuse in the corner of your yard. Any way you do it, the end result greens up your garden, your lawn, and the earth.