Live Sustainably: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The Hanover Recycling Committee has as its motto “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Notice that we order reduce and reuse before recycle. Why? Because the environmental impact of product consumption is minimized more by reducing and reusing than by recycling. Recycling should be a last resort, only taking precedence over the creation of more garbage. So what can we do in our daily lives to reduce the amount of garbage we create?

Consume only what you really want or need. It sounds simple but it’s rarely accomplished. This is because people are exposed to many advertisements telling them what they need to buy whether they truly need it or not. Meanwhile, people are rarely exposed to information that explores alternatives to buying unnecessary goods. If such information were available, people would spend less, generate less waste and, at times, generate less hazardous pollution.

Here are a few examples.

What do you do when you have a clogged drain? Many people buy a chemical agent like Drano. They spend their money to buy the product, pour chemicals down the drain and into the environment and have a hazardous container to dispose of. The truth is you never need to buy such products. A simple plunger will unclog any drain. You can also pour 1 cup each of baking soda, salt and white vinegar down the drain, wait 15 minutes and flush the drain with boiling hot water. Usually, a plunger will do the trick.

It’s hard to recycle aerosol cans. Can we live without them? Usually it’s easy. There are often non-aerosol options if you look hard enough (try online). For example, you can find non-aerosol shaving creams. You can even lather up with soap in a crunch. For furniture polish, you can find non-aerosol containers or you can try making the polish yourself. Just mix 1 part lemon juice with 1 part vegetable oil and apply from a spray bottle. If you can avoid aerosol cans, not only are you creating less waste, you are also avoiding chemicals that may be harmful to the environment.

What else? Use the same water bottle daily. Refill it where clean water is available rather than buying a new bottle. In Hanover, municipal water is only $0.003 per gallon and it tastes great. (Just remember to wash the bottle to avoid bacteria growth.) More generally, we can all avoid products with short life spans or, even worse, disposables. For example, when your current light bulbs die out, buy a compact fluorescent light bulb. It will last longer and according to the U.S. government, if every household replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent alternative “we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars”. Not bad! The bulb will cost more upfront, but save you in the long run.

Lots of other disposables can be disposed of. How? Use cloth diapers for your baby, never buy disposable razors, use regular dinnerware that can be washed rather than plastic or styrofoam alternatives, use dishcloths rather than paper towels whenever possible, bring your own cloth bags to the grocery store. Can you think of other ways? Let us know your ideas.

In this photograph taken at the 4th of July fair on the Green, a member of the Hanover Recycling Committee talks with a member of the local community about living sustainably. Join us here to continue the conversation!

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