It's very tempting to throw things away or even drop them in a recycling bin when we are done with them. Is there a better way?
Share your ideas for extending the “lives” of the items that we buy and use, and their packaging as well!
Reuse & Repurpose >
Importance of Reuising
Reuse is different from recycling where recycling uses a lot more energy than reusing. When reusing an object, rather than throwing it out, we put it back to use. Reuse can impact our communities as businesses can donate old materials and products to schools, restaurants, etc. This benefits the community and avoids wasting good materials. By reusing items, we cut down the amount of material that is sent to landfills and recycling centers. By lowering this, we help decrease pollution that is unloaded into the Earth's atmosphere and waterways. We can reuse by buying things used such as clothing at thrift shops. We can also try to buy products with less packaging. We should avoid using any plastic grocery bags and disposable silverware.
I agree with you and the reuse of materials is very important, however, I feel that an even more helpful step we could take is reducing before we even reuse. This may be a little more difficult but will ultimately have the greatest impact on our community. By reducing the amount of unsustainable resources like oils and plastics, re reduce the amount that will get washed away into the ocean. Out of all plastics globally produced, 0.01% will be washed away into the ocean. Now that might now seem like much but thats 4-12 million metric tons were put into the ocean in 2010 alone and that is expected to increase by more than double in the next 10 years. Reducing the use of such plastics can have a very positive impact on our community. And when you think "oh one plastic straw wont do any harm", think again, you can save a sea creatures life by choosing do drink without the use of a straw. I've attached the source for my statistics and a video of the impact of plastic pollution has on marine life below.
Source:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/ … -each-year
Warning video may contain grafic images.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wH878t78bw
Developing an improved biodegradable plastic will Be just as effective
I agree with what you're saying about reusing instead of recycling. It would be very beneficial to the earth if we could reuse glass or plastic bottles we buy for drinks a few times. I also believe that before we consider reuse or recycle we consider reducing the amount of bottle we purchase, and possibly invest in a household water filter.