Don’t Buy Recycled Products…

…unless the “footprint” is actually smaller.

I’m all for recycling, but it is within reason. When you consider the recycled product purchases you are making, take into consideration some of the potential downsides:

• Is the recycled product a locally-made product, or has your recycled product been shipped thousands of miles to your store shelf, thus causing fuel usage and added carbon footprint. Is there an alternative that may not be a recycled product, or have a lower percentage of post-consumer materials, but is locally made?
• Will you cause other waste by using a recycled product? For example, recycled toner cartridges are slightly cheaper, and negate the need for all the new components that hold the toner in the cartridge. However, it’s been my experience (recently, even) that recycled toner cartridges can leak, causing me to have to reprint important documents, thus wasting a lot of paper. In addition, some printer warranties may be void if you don’t use them according to the warranty (i.e., using non-recycled replacement cartridges). Check your warranty or contact the manufacturer to be certain.
• Are you buying a recycled product just because it’s recycled? Do you really need it, or are you just feeling better because you think you’re being greener? Consider whether you actually need the product.

Just cuz… it’s not our planet.

Concentrate

Fresh squeezed juice is SO good, but to be honest, I sometimes can’t tell the difference between the carton of “fresh squeezed,” and the carton of “natural” with “from concentrate” in tiny print.  So I did a little (I’ll admit, very little) research, and from what I saw, there was very little difference between commercial products.  You’ll really have to look at the ingredients and the nutritional labels to convince yourself.

But I was actually thinking of the packaging of the “fresher” stuff. A lot of packaging, to be honest – between glass bottles and plastic jugs. Sure, they’re recyclable, but as I talked about in a recent post, isn’t it more important to reuse and reduce than it is to recycle? Recycling should, I believe, be a last resort.

So save one or two of those gallon- or quart-sized plastic bottles, and when purchasing frozen juices, head to the freezer section. With breakthroughs in packaging and processing, many of the “from concentrated” juices are just as healthy as the non-concentrated or fresh-squeezed versions. And the packaging for these products is very small compared to the jugs and bottles you may buy every year.

Give it a try. See if you and the kids like the concentrated stuff. Rinse and reuse (or recycle) the containers the frozen concentrate comes it, and use – or actually RE-use – the plastic jug from the last time you bought the more expensive stuff… just cuz.

Stop Recycling!

When we were children, we were told that the most important things we were learning in school were the three R’s – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. As a kid, I was pretty good at spelling, and thought it was weird to call it the three R’s when it was really an R, W, and an A.

Now in the beginning of the 21st century, there’s a new set of “R’s” – namely, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

It seems the most prominent of the three is the last – Recycle, however, when you think about it, it really should be a last resort!

Here’s a different way to think about it all:

Reduce – when purchasing items, consider how much extra packaging is being used to contain the product. If the product’s packaging wastefully uses plastic or empty space, consider buying an alternative!

Reuse – Although storage is a concern in many households, before you toss something in the trash to be carried off to a landfill, or toss it in the recycling bin to be carried off to a recycling plant, perhaps there is an alternative! Many churches, schools, and daycare centers use cleaned tin cans, egg cartons, and other items for children’s crafts.

Recycle – This doesn’t mean “Replace!” There have been times when friends or co-workers tell me that they’re “Thinking Green” by replacing all of the non-green things in their lives with green things. So they go out and purchase paper cups for their picnics and throw away their unused Styrofoam cups that have been collecting dust for three years. They buy the new fangled swirly fluorescent light bulbs and replace all of their current (WORKING) light bulbs, throwing the perfectly good light bulbs away. Once a recyclable items has used up it’s life (so to speak), and can no longer be used (or reused) as something else, then (and only then) should recycling be the option.

So I’m not really saying DON’T recycle, I’m saying we should think about reducing and reusing first, and then choose recycling as the last resort.

Don’t Buy Bottled Water

Another twist to this blog will be my feelings on some of the things that are happening with our environment. Now, I don’t consider myself a “tree hugger” or a “crunchy person” by any measure. I do, however, try to think about cause and effect, and how little things I do (or don’t do) may not make a dramatic change in my daily life, but a thousand little changes can at least make a dent and promotes that good stuff.

Recently I heard a statistic that I won’t repeat here, because frankly, I am wary about how statistics are formulated. The statistic had to do with the amount of empty water bottles that are filling up landfills. The numbers stated in the statistic were huge, so of course, the cynic in me (which I need to work on) doubted the authenticity. I’m pretty good in math, so I try to form my own rationale regarding things.

Back in the 80s, when Olivia Newton-John was getting physical, there appeared on shelves a product called Evian. I thought the world had gone insane. Buying water? That’s just silly.

Almost 30 years later, it’s not so silly. Everyone seems to be doing it. And I’m all for the convenience of carrying around a 16.9 ounce ice cold helping of clean and tasty water. But the packaging is what concerns me. Millions of these small plastic bottles are being thrown away (or recycled). And while recycling this material is better than throwing this material away, what’s even better than recycling is not having the need to recycle.

Now, you may be asking, “What? What do you mean by “not having the need to recycle?”

If you didn’t purchase individual servings of bottled water, you wouldn’t have to recycle the individual bottles.

Do you want a potentially cheaper and more convenient alternative? Rent a water cooler. Yes, rent a water cooler. Many of the well-known bottled water distributors now offer rentable water coolers for home use. They deliver those 5-gallon polycarbonate water jugs to your home, and you place it in the rented cooler. Most of the time, it ends up being much cheaper than those individual bottles.

So run to your nearest convenience department store, and purchase a water bottle that you can refill from your own home water cooler, and skip the whole recycling process. You’ll be saving money, energy, and doing a little bit of good stuff.

Just cuz.