Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Repair.

I wonder if reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair are lost on us as a society now. I remember growing up that reduce, reuse, and recycle was taught to us in grade school. Now it seems that everything that has been used up or is broken just gets tossed out with the trash and new ones are purchased. This apathetic attitude towards are things is certainly bad for our pocket book and bad for the environment.

Unless you're recycling what can be, those items end up in a landfill, their new forever home.

I started thinking about this when I was getting ready to ship a painting to a friend. I needed a box that was the appropriate size and some bubble wrap to protect it. I knew I had a box at home I could use, but needed to get the bubble wrap from the store. I made several searches of my house and garage for a box. The only one big enough was a little too big, but I decided to use it instead of purchasing a new one. Money saved! As I wrote down UPS on my list of To Do's I remembered that my mom had used plastic grocery bags to stuff a box that had Christmas presents in them. I always use saved grocery bags to clean out the cat's litter box so I pulled them all out from under the kitchen sink and in the process found a small box and a paper bag full of even more plastic bags! I used these to stuff the box and still had some left over. More money saved! The painting should make it safely to it's destination.

This has gotten me thinking about other items I may throw away or choose to recycle. While I can recycle plastic water bottles, I can't recycle the lid. Why is that? The lid is plastic too! Or how about purchasing bottled water in a cardboard box? Boxed Water aims to do it better.

Take a look around your house. What is taking up so much space that you need to pay for a storage unit? Are you endlessly doing laundry? Do you only grocery shop once a month, cramming your fridge with food that eventually goes bad? I recently went through my closet and got rid of at least 80% of my clothes. I only kept what I knew I would wear and some items I now only have one of. Pairing down my items helped me to declutter and will save me time of doing huge loads of laundry. I also grocery shop every week, buying only what I need for that week. It keeps my costs down as I only shop for a week at a time and it avoids foods getting spoiled.

What can you reuse instead of throwing away? I've created shelving out of stacked boxes and draped them with a blanket. I've reused boxes to ship things. I've turned a bench with cubby holes into a desk with spots for books and shoes.

What can be repaired (for a fraction of the cost of purchasing a new one)? I have yet to repair anything that has been broken, but that is my next decision when something is and I'll be sure to write about it when I do!

Peace and Love!