recycling

our top five items for this week are about recycling. everyone knows the three r's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. reducing what you consume comes first; the less you consume, the less waste you produce. second is reusing - whatever you do end up buying or consuming should be reused when possible (plastic bags for instance). finally, you should recycle anything that can't be reused anymore. while recycling should be the final and last resort of the three r's, it doesn't mean that it isn't important! i'm going to cover recycling paper and clothing.

first - paper. in most places, paper (including cardboard) is extremely easy to recycle. some don'ts for the recycling of paper are: greasy or food contaminated items (like pizza boxes), wax paper, carbon paper, sticky paper (such as post-its), and laminated paper. but other paper, including magazines and newspapers, can generally all be recycled together. but, rather than recycling right away, see if you can donate your old magazines to the library, hospital, or doctor's office - reuse before recycle! you can also use the pages for gift wrap or for kids arts and crafts projects. i wrapped all my christmas presents in newspaper this year, and no one thought i was being cheap, they all thought it was a cool way to recycle. phone books are another item that can be recycled (if you happen to have a rabbit, you may want to give them your old phone books as they love to chew on them). now, for shredded paper. there are those papers that you can't recycle, and you just have to shred. well, i use them for bedding for my numerous little critters (gerbil, mouse, and hamster). the shredded paper works wonderfully, and i haven't had to spend money on expensive bedding from the pet store. you can also compost the shredded paper straight from the shredder, or use it as packing material. it's WAY better than those nasty styrofoam peanuts! and i just compost my shreddings after cleaning up after my critters (you can compost waste from animals that don't eat meat, so these guys pass the test; but don't try to compost your dog or cat poo).

if you first want to reduce the amount of paper that you have to recycle, you can pay bills online - almost everyone offers this service now. you can do online banking, which cuts out a lot of paper use. also, you can email whenever possible. i know, sometimes emailing can be unprofessional or tacky (like wedding invitations), but a lot of times, an email will suffice.

and one last thought on paper - if you truly want to go full circle with recycling, you should also buy recycled paper products. this includes regular old paper, but also paper towels, toilet paper, tissues, and napkins. or you could start using cloth towels and napkins to replace the disposable kind, and - dare i say it - handkerchiefs. think about this: in the u.s., if every household replaced one box of tissues with a box of 100% recycled ones, it would save 163,000 trees. if the same was done for only one roll of toilet paper it would save 423,900 trees. for paper towels, it would save 544,000 trees. finally, if one package of napkins in every u.s. household was replaced with 100% recycled ones, it would save one million trees. everything you do makes a difference, so think before you buy. here's a handy list of brands to buy and who to avoid. the recycled products tend to be a little more expensive, but it's totally worth it. just think of all the trees that you will be saving.

second - clothing. the best way to recycle clothing is thrift stores. i love thrift stores. how can you not love them? you can get super cheap clothing and you're money is going towards a good cause. check out the pages for goodwill and salvation army if you aren't already familiar with them. but as for recycling, you can just donate all of the old clothes you don't wear anymore to either of these places, or any other thrift store near you. there are other places that you can donate clothing to and shop at that are a bit more upscale, for those of you who don't like sifting through the acid washed jeans and muu muus and xxl garth brooks concert t-shirts. plato's closet is one such place. they give you money for your "brand name, gently used" clothes. there is one in deptford, nj that i go to occassionally and i never leave there without buying something amazing. there is also the freecycle option. if you aren't signed up for freecycle you should definitely do it. it's an email list and when you sign up for it, you get emails from people in your area who are getting rid of stuff. and you send out emails telling people that you have stuff you want to get rid of. you don't pay for anything, all you have to do is be able to go pick it up from them. it's a great way to get rid of old clothing if you can't drop it at a thrift store (not to mention all the other junk you can rid of in this way). one little suggestion though - it can get pretty crazy with all the emails, so you may want to use a separate account so your regular emails don't get lost in them.

since this is turning into an exceptionally long post, i'm just going to leave you with that. remember: reuse and recycle your paper and buy recycled paper; and recycle your clothes via thrift or consignment stores or freecycle. you'll be glad once you do.