By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Recycling is, indeed the final option and solution. Once you head for the recycling bin you have lost.
All the time we hear “recycle”, “recycle”, “recycle”, as if that would be the “3Rs” of waste management. But reuse is before recycle on the list and we must think reuse and, as said, and thus really we might need a fourth “R”, repurpose before recycle, if reuse is not a possible option.
The fact that recycle is the final solution and that once you head for the recycling bin you have lost the battle already really.
Many things that people toss, thoughtlessly often, for we have been so conditioned to only one “R” really, namely, recycle, into the recycling bin could continue life elsewhere as something else.
A clean tin can, lid cut out, makes for a great pencil pin or receptacle for cutlery, etc. It only belongs into the recycling stream if you (or others) have no other and further use for it.
The same goes for glass jars (and even some types of bottles) and for many other things as well.
If you use blank index cards why not make your own from cereal packs and such? Use a paper trimmer, aka guillotine, and cut them 3”x5” (or whatever size you use) and you save money and do the Planet some good too.
Green business and visiting cards too can be created using this method of upcycling packaging card stock and a rubber stamp. They work well and are a great conversation piece. All my index cards and business/visitor cards are upcycled from waste packaging material and such like waste card stock.
Our ancestors, our great-grandparents and our grandparents, in many cases even our parents, were masters in reusing and repurposing and the majority of them looked at each and every item of waste – often – several times before ever tossing it out.
The Australian Bushmen, the often called squatters, used as many items of waste as possible from which to fashion everything that they needed. There are some great examples in some books and – probably – on the Internet on those things that they made.
Many of us could use their examples and from them get ideas as to what we can use this or that item of waste for that we come across on a daily basis at home, at work, or even laying about in the street.
If we all put our minds into gear I am sure that there would be very little that actually would have to go into the recycling stream and even less into landfill.
© 2011
