Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Intro

 Contributed by Catherine Vierthaler, Director of Finance, Green Builder Media

Maybe it is the influence of my grandmother who came of age and started her family during the Great Depression, but I have a deeply rooted fear of wasting anything!   As a young child I loved the drums we “made” out of oatmeal containers, and as teens, my cousins and I giggled about the balls of string and rubber bands.  But, her “do more with less” ethic has definitely rubbed off on me.

If something has an iota of use left in it, I can’t throw it away.  So, you can imagine that my home might look like a garbage pit, but you’d be wrong.  I love the sleekness of modern design, and hate to have anything around that isn’t essentially useful to my life.

So, what to do with all the stuff that is no longer useful to me?  I try to follow the covenants of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.  First, I try not to buy stuff that I don’t need, or that only has a single purpose (shoes and purses excluded).  Then, I ALWAYS try to find a way to reuse the items that are no longer useful in the way that they were originally intended.  And finally, I recycle everything I can, from aluminum foil to ziplock bags.

Follow along this month as I introduce you to some new ideas, articles and websites that help us conquer our consumerism and the “throw away” economy.  By implementing ideas that make sense for you, you might help save the earth and some money, too.