by Dan Stone
(Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
You may have heard of the saying “reduce, reuse and recycle” – but how does this saying fit into the everyday practices of going green?
1) Reducing
This first principle means cutting down on the energy we’re using.
This doesn’t just mean turning off the light switch when you leave a room, or using less gas – it also means saving energy by consuming less. Everything we buy took more energy to create than we realize.
By reducing everything we use, we’re going a long way to protect the environment (and we’ll be saving money).
Reducing also means making more careful decisions about what we buy, even if we don’t necessarily cut down. For example, some of the most important going green ideas are based around the food we eat.
When buying food from the supermarket, simply choosing a brand that uses less packaging than others will reduce our carbon footprint.
2) Reusing
The second principle says that we should try to make the most out of everything that we already have before we go out and think about buying more.
Many of us are used to throwing things away without really thinking carefully about whether the item still has any life left in it.
Some going green ideas that come under this heading include repairing holes in clothing, or even repurposing old trousers into a fashionable new skirt or a reusable eco-friendly bag.
Why does this help? We’ll be stopping items from ending up on the landfill and we’ll be saving the energy it would take for new items to be manufactured.
3) Recycling
This principle is also based on reducing the number of items we send to the landfill.
Recycling means using old materials to create something new, instead of leaving it to decompose (which can take thousands of years for some products).
The good news is that most local areas now have recycling schemes to help make this a lot easier. Items we can recycle include paper, plastic, glass, clothing and electronics.
Knowing these three main principles can make going green ideas a lot easier to understand. It can be overwhelming at first, but the good news is that taking the principles into account means you’ll also start to save some money!
Just start small and make more changes when you feel ready.
Click here to read more about making your home energy efficient with Recycling