What can we do to help our planet by recycling, reusing, and reducing?
Everybody speaks about the importance of being eco-friendly and helping our planet by using less water, recycling, and taking care of our plants and animals. But, do you actually know that we throw amazing amounts of pounds in the trash daily? This is a major problem since people are not currently recycling as we should, and we should know that giving a second chance to certain things will lead us to live a really good life in a greater world.
We tend to throw away TVs, computers, printers, monitors, keyboards, and many other electronic items and cables that can be easy to reuse and to stop creating more trash than we really need.
With that, we also throw plastic, glass, paper, and many other items that can be potential items to start to create a recycling trend. It’s not easy to start and become the recycling master, and we understand this can be a learning process, but we definitely know that you can begin as minimum or as maximum as you want.
Recycling
Basically, it is turning and transforming objects we have already used into new products. By doing this, we reduce the number of new items that are created daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.
There are multiple items we can recycle, but for not saying almost everything. However, these are the most common:
- Plastics
- Glass
- Metals
- Electronics
- Computers and accessories
- Textiles
- Newspapers and magazines
- Cardboard
Reusing
As its name says, reusing means trying to extend the life of an item in its maximum way. For example, there are certain things we cannot recycle like paper plates, but we can certainly have a glass or ceramic plate that will be able to be used plenty of times by reusing it and not throwing everything in the trash. This helps to prevent and lower the energy, materials, and tools we use to create all of these products. You can certainly use items like soda cans or chip bags to reuse them as new bags or cans for little plants, kitchen, or stationary storage.
Reducing
Reducing as we mentioned before, is a way in which we reduce our purchases and get more advantages of our natural resources instead of creating new products with energy and materials.
Our planet can be impacted as well if we reduce the amount of gas, by carpooling or getting to places with a bike or any other resource. Of course, we all know that public transportation isn’t that great and safe in every country but at least we can try to reduce the amount of times we go out just for fun.
We can also reduce our disposable dishes, cups, and cutlery usage and we can also start buying products without plastic packages and consider buying in bulk,
We can also reduce the amount of water by taking shorter showers and using a thoughtful amount of water when we wash our hands or brush our teeth.
Photo courtesy of Reuse this bag.
Helping our planet will lead us to a greater life
So now that we know the difference between recycling, reducing, and reusing, why should we do it? That’s a great question and let me tell you why.
When we imagine what we want to do when we grow up, we tend to create in our minds how amazing we will be living in the future. Having a great career or being a really good doctor, a wonderful fireman, a nice teacher, or any other thing you can think of. But we never start to think if this future will be as amazing if we don’t have all of the resources we have now. Probably it won’t be as nice as it may seem.
So, from now on, when you finish a bottle of water or a chips bag, please keep in mind, that if you recycle, reduce, and reuse, you will be helping to save our natural resources and wildlife. You will be saving money while reducing pollution. You will also be saving energy and reducing your life footprint, and you may also be creating the opportunity for new jobs for different people.
