Back to Basics, Green Style

I'm hearing more and more about people getting back to the basics in today's economy. Grandma's advice is being referenced more and more, especially about saving for a rainy day. To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, you know it's going to rain, so you may as well save for it. Saving money, not spending everything you bring in is certainly smart, and some of the ways you can save around the house is by doing some of the basics of being green. The three basics you are probably most familiar with are reduce, reuse, and recycle. What do these mean and what are some examples, you ask?

Reduce--cut back. Lowering your thermostat a degree or two in the winter and raising it a bit in the summer will help lower your energy costs. Ways to cut back on your water usage include taking shorter showers and not as many baths. By composting kitchen scraps and recycling your trash, you can reduce or eliminate the number of times you take your trash can to the curb. These are just a few of the ways to help reduce your consumption of energy, water, and solid waste.

Reuse--Find another use for an item to prolong its life. Turn an item into something else, thus creating a new use for it. If you don't love an item anymore, but it still has some life left in it, check with your local Freecycle group , Goodwill, Salvation Army, Craigs List, local consignment store, or have a yardsale. One person's trash is another person's treasure, right? Also, if you are in need of an item, don't forget to check these places first before buying a new one.

Recycling is the process of taking a product at the end of its useful life and using all or part of it to make another product http://earth911.com/recycling/. Many people I have talked to who recycle feel that it is easy to do, especially once it has become part of their normal routine. Landfills are lined at the bottom and lined or capped on top. Unfortunately, all kinds of toxic substances are dumped in them along w/ sharp objects which cut the lining, allowing rain water to filter in and liquids to seep out into the ground and eventually our water table. This means our rivers, lakes, and oceans where we play, as well as our drinking water sources, are at risk for being polluted.

For many of you, this may have been a rather elementary lesson on reducing, reusing, and recycling; a back to basics review if you will. In the upcoming weeks, I will bring you more info that I hope will be useful, informative, and especially motivational. Feel free to send me questions and your comments are most welcome. Would you be kind enough to tell me how you are reducing, reusing, and recycling? I'll start--I recycle most of our 'trash', so much so, that we only have to take our trash can to the curb about once a month.

Recycling Roanoke one home at a time,
Suzanne