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Recycling is vital but should not be treated as one dimensional. After all, it is a Reduce-Reuse-Recycle triangle. Not everything can be recycled indefinitely, and recycling still uses energy and resources. So lets focus on another important aspect of the recycling triangle, the Reduce aspect, or in other words BUYING LESS. This topic is something we should all remember and keep in the front of our minds. For one, it helps the environment and two it helps your bank account. Not to mention it describes what almost every American needs to be doing... Buying Less..
Whenever we buy something, resources are extracted and used to create a product. All of this has an impact on the environment, including depleting the resources we have left for the future. Every product has a journey and you can find some of those stories on the website, The Story of Stuff. Our current shopping habits and rampant consumerism aren’t sustainable - one day the resources will run out. When we buy something new, waste is created and our landfills already have limited space. We do not need most of the stuff we buy so why waste money and hurt the environment. We need to change our habits and the way we live.
So let us try and be conscious consumers, aware of what we are buying and why we are buying it. Let us buy less, after all we do not need that many pairs of shoes (you know who you are!). I am not talking about going off the grid with no cell phone and rags as clothes, that is a little extreme. We have had a growing trend to buy more and that more is better, but now that needs to shift the other way. We need to buy less, because less is cool! Also, buy or sell used stuff: craigslist, freecycle, or thrift stores.
Whenever we buy something, resources are extracted and used to create a product. All of this has an impact on the environment, including depleting the resources we have left for the future. Every product has a journey and you can find some of those stories on the website, The Story of Stuff. Our current shopping habits and rampant consumerism aren’t sustainable - one day the resources will run out. When we buy something new, waste is created and our landfills already have limited space. We do not need most of the stuff we buy so why waste money and hurt the environment. We need to change our habits and the way we live.
So let us try and be conscious consumers, aware of what we are buying and why we are buying it. Let us buy less, after all we do not need that many pairs of shoes (you know who you are!). I am not talking about going off the grid with no cell phone and rags as clothes, that is a little extreme. We have had a growing trend to buy more and that more is better, but now that needs to shift the other way. We need to buy less, because less is cool! Also, buy or sell used stuff: craigslist, freecycle, or thrift stores.
REDUCE is the first step of the 3 Rs cycle for a reason.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who came up with the idea to begin with, and when. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Simple, effective, and brilliant. I ask when though, because form what I can see, over time the message behind 'Reduce' and the connotation it inspires has to have evolved over time.
Today, 'Reduce' is telling my mother that she doesn't need to ask for paper plates when she picks up to pizza from Costco to-go... HOME. We're a society that functions primarily on disposable products. How did it come to this?
I would find it hard to believe that this same attitude towards our possessions would have existed during the Great Depression, when people conserves their resources not out of mere consideration for THEIR PLANET but out of necessity. And while hopefully we will never have to experience such disparity, I can't help but wonder if it instilled a greater respect for the things they used and owned, and if they were more appreciative of these things as a result. Let's see if we can find someone during the Great Depression who threw something out simply because a newer model was available.
But so far, "reduce' seems to be no match for us, even during our Great Recession. What can we do to inspire ourselves to change? How do we teach our society that we must change, or risk drowning in our own filth (literally)?
It's so frustrating that I don't know the answers to these questions. But I am happy that there are people like you who are working to counteract our addiction to STUFF.
Oh and have a listen to this awesome song I stumbled across. She's got the right idea...
"There's nothing made that's made to stay."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLQMs7Qs5qY