An Order of Operations - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By now you should have heard of the 3 Rs, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. If you have not, you either live under a rock or I hope your community generates only organic waste.

It is a simple concept, school children can grasp it. It is easy to apply in every day life.

But it seems that our society enjoys having things new and shiny. Unfortunately recycling almost allows us to feel absolved of our disposable ways. In our cycle of environmental responsibility it is important to remember that the three Rs are not equal in desirability towards our planet and its well being.

Lets use the example of my specialty, plastics, although Recycling is more desirable than filling a landfill, it requires energy to process the recyclable, to transform it into a base product and to create a new product from that base. It is desirable because we transform one product into another, not because we save energy. Therefore recycling is in fact a process that burns fossil fuels. A material that we are trying to conserve by recycling our plastics.

That is why the order is, and has always been, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Like basic algebra, it is an order of operations. Written as a math equation:

Reduce > Reuse > Recycle

Our focus needs to shift back to this concept.

Reduce: Do we really need those single serve yogurts, would a larger container do? How about printing out that e-mail from our boss, will it just disappear into a filing cabinet? Reduction is about eliminated extraneous products from our lives.

I for one am always complaining about all the stuff cluttering my life and my home.

Reuse: People have a wonderful quality called creativity. Find things that would otherwise end up in the recycling or trash and give them new life. Bring yesterday's leftovers to work in the morning's empty pint of yogurt. Don't have a creative bone in your body? The web is full of DIY projects to inspire you.

Recycle: I may have vilefiled recycling a little earlier, but it is still a great technology and products that don't end up in landfills are good products. Recycling is what should eventually be able to happen to the waste that we had to have and could no longer reuse. And while technology and society does not allow us to recycle everything that enters our homes, a remarkable amount can be turned into new products.

How would you suggest we get people thinking in the right order again?