Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

I read a quote few days back:

You work in a job you hate, to buy things that you don’t need, to impress people whom you don’t like

I recently attended “Houston Recycling” presentation at Schlumberger and thought of sharing a few things about recycling.

Recycling 101

Reduce

Reduce means to prevent waste at the source.  Buy only those things that you need and use it up.

Reuse

Finding a second (or third, or hundredth..) use for a product to extend its life.  Buy or sell second-hand items with Craigslist, Ebay etc.

Recycle

Taking a product at the end of its useful life and using all or part of it to make another product.

Why Recycle?

Story of Stuff

We need to ask ourselves two questions:

1) Where the stuff come from?

2) Where the stuff goes to?

Here is the story of the stuff

Reducing Consumption

Like other species on Earth, humans too derive materials to produce and later consume from their environment.  We must remember that, Nature has and will survive any environmental disaster; humans won’t.  We, the mighty ones will get recycled to new species.  Humans have greater impact on the environment compared to other species, which could be given by a simple equation

Human Impact = Population X Affluence X Technology

• Population is growing at an alarming exponential rate.  We need to fix this somehow. ↑
• Affluence represents the average consumption of each person in the population.  It is related to GDP/capita which is increasing over the few centuries for many nations. ↑
• Technology represents how resource intensive the production of affluence is; Technology driven by innovation produces many efficient products in certain areas (so we are doing good) ↓

Currently, the product of P and A outweighs T.  In order to cut the impact on the Environment, we need to work on controlling the population and reducing our consumption.

Unlike population control measures, consumption is something that we could control on a day-to-day basis.

Before making a buying decision, we must find out our Needs and Wants.  Needs are something that we want to have, something we can’t do without.  Wants however, are something we would like to have and stars won’t fall on earth, if we don’t have them.   Economists consider ‘Needs’ as something essential for survival – food, clothing, shelter etc.  Nonetheless, we don’t live just for survival but to have a better everyday life experience.   If you are a music lover and would like to own a ‘Apple Ipod’; buy it, if you could afford it.  In my opinion, instead of compromising on your music hearing experience by purchasing a low quality music player, getting an IPod could be considered a ‘Need’ rather than a ‘Want’.    If you could not afford it now, save and buy later.   Buy things that you consider essential for your everyday life and which are of good quality, but keep it to the least.  I understand that people need two/three pairs of good quality shoes, but whether someone really need or want a wardrobe full of shoes?

Free is always a mesmerizing word and can easily fool you into the trap of accumulating things.  Also, people tend to buy things that they don’t need simply stating – ‘Are you Stupid? Can’t you see that the product came with a very good deal‘.  More than the buyer of a product, a seller attaches more value to the product that they own.  Sometimes, they don’t find a market to sell things at the price they want.  So, people find it difficult to let go off their old cars (for instance), even though it is gas guzzling and running under high maintenance.

Certain thing are external to us, but you can control.  For instance, I opted out from lot of pre-approved credit card offers, yellow page stuff , paper bills.  I don’t need them anyway.  I don’t wish to spend time processing them and putting them in trash.

Reusing Stuff

If we can’t resist the temptation of consumption, we have to find TIME to keep things organized.   HOUSEKEEPING becomes essential to keep up things in order and to remove clutter.

Anyhow, One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  Identify things that you don’t need, but might be useful to someone else.  You can give stuff to Goodwill or sell it on Ebay, Craigslist etc..  Back in India, many things I could find ways to get it repaired and reuse multiple times.  Here in US, it is mostly ‘use and throw’; repairing is not worth the effort compared to purchasing a new product.

If you plan to read a book only once and not use it as a reference, you can either get it from a local library or buy and then sell it online.  Sometimes, it is better to rent something for a one time use rather than buying  and never using it again.

Recycling

Reducing clutter saves space and reusing stuff increases product lifetime.  However, Recycling is almost like giving new life to an already dying soul.

If you don’t recycle products, or if you throw your food waste away, instead of composting it, much of it go to the Landfills and occupies space.   Landfills are designed to bury trash – not break it down.  Very little oxygen or moisture flow through these landfills and it takes a lot of time to decompose.  There is a possibility of leaching solid waste to ground waters, lakes and rivers.

Almost 64% of what goes into landfills is paper, plastic, metal and glass.

Any type of paper is recyclable, including envelopes, post-it notes, colored paper, newspaper, cardboard, and magazines.  However, recycle paper that is fluorescent or brightly colored, waxy and thermal (older fax machines), laminated and food-stained ones are not a good fit.

Most plastic containers have a number 1 through 7 inside a recycle symbol.   Most cities accept numbers 1 and 2.   No. 6 plastic, which is made up of Polystyrene is not recyclable yet.  A good example of No. 6 plastic is Styrofoam cups.

All metal cans can be recycled whether they are aluminium, tin, steel or a combination.

Glass containers are 100% recyclable and can be recycled infinitely without any loss of purity or quality.

Two types of batteries can be recycled: Lead-acid ( from cars) and rechargeable (Nickel Cadmium batteries and others).

CFLs contain mercury and shouldn’t be thrown in trash.

Motor oil and Paint are recyclable and don’t put it down the drain because it can contaminate ground water.

Most recycle products consume LESS energy to produce during the manufacturing process and recycling industry is growing at a bigger pace.  There is definitely a bigger market for recycled products.

Take Away

Remember the 3R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Conserve our planet, by making good choices in your everyday life.

References:

Tidbits and Facts about Recycling

http://www.recycleindia.org/

http://earth911.com/recycling/

http://1800recycling.com/

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