We all know that reducing waste is important for the environment, but sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start.
We all know that reducing waste is important for the environment, but sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start.
We’ve all been there: you have a bunch of stuff lying around and you don’t feel like disposing of it, so you keep it in your home instead. That’s fine in some cases (especially for stuff that is not particularly valuable), but in many others, junk isn’t worth the time or energy to dispose of it yourself.
Some tips:
Arrange your furniture so that most of it is visible from outside (and even better if they are accessible from indoors), while keeping as much of it out of reach from children
If possible, get rid of things you don’t use regularly or don’t care about anymore — put them away or donate them when they are no longer useful
There really aren’t any rules about what items should go into a cardboard box — we use both empty boxes and boxes full of books and electronics, and we have good home office storage too, so really anything works! If you have more than one item inside, try putting something like clothing onto the outside first before putting the rest inside — otherwise you could end up awkwardly folding clothing inside another item!
So what do people think? Are there any other suggestions? Let us know in the
Recycling
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One of the easiest ways to reduce waste in your home is to recycle.
Recycling is not rocket science; it just requires a bit of motivation. In fact, it’s actually pretty easy.
The most important thing that you need to be doing is getting rid of items that are no longer usable — they’re either broken or the wrong colour. Then, try to find the best use for the item in question. For example, if you have a wool rug in your front room and are using it to cover a table on which there is an open laptop, then you can ask yourself how can I use it?
If it has sentimental value, see if you can attach a time capsule to it or bury some money and other valuables under it. Once you’ve figured out what to do with them, and what kind of value they have for you, then make an informed decision about whether they should be recycled or not.
A lot of people don’t follow this, but there are some things that should definitely be recycled:
Cigarette butts: these should always be recycled because they could be used as compost or fertiliser to increase crops’ fertility. They are also easier to recycle than paper or plastic bags (which are more easily recyclable).
Empty soda cans (or other cans): if you really want them for something else, try using them as bird feeders. All the same rules apply here (they can only be used once before being thrown away), except that I would hope that your garden would include birds enough for this to work out well for them anyway!
This is not an exhaustive list; there are many other items that could be considered waste which still deserves consideration at home: food waste from microwaving leftovers from take-out; paper towels with waterlogged spots; products which have been opened more than once; and definitely anything we don’t want around us any longer but haven’t yet been disposed of properly.
More advanced recycling can reduce waste by eliminating items which degrade quickly (e.g., flexible plastics) and by recycling materials which have strong economic value so long as their use doesn’t pose significant environmental hazards (e.g., glass bottles).
If you do some investigation into your home’s waste disposal system now — whether through online search engines like Google or through friends who live nearby — then you may discover something useful in the amount of household waste already generated at home during one year’s living in your house (i.
Composting
Another great way to reduce waste is to compost food scraps and other organic materials.
Waste (of food and other materials, in particular) is a major problem in the modern world. While some countries such as the United States and Australia have made great strides towards reducing waste (that is, improving recycling rates and composting them), many others do not.
Composting is one of those things that most people don’t think about because it doesn’t seem like much of a difference to what we do every day: we throw away food scraps that would be good for the soil or for animals.
But, composting can have big effects on the environment, reducing pollution by creating valuable fertiliser and making other materials more recyclable. It also helps reduce the amount of garbage produced in cities by producing high-quality fertiliser.
A lot has been written about how to compost, and there are plenty of different ways you can do it. I’ll just give you a couple of suggestions to get you started:
1) Buy a bin with an inner lining that has holes cut out of it so your food scraps will fall right into it, therefore making compost for the garden. That way they will heat up during the process and make a nice bed for microbes to do their thing on them before turning into rich soil for plants to grow in.
2) Use a mulch mat — I used one for years until I realised how much more efficient recycling was than composter — fill it with shredded paper from magazines, newspapers or other miscellaneous trash (including glass bottles!), then spread it over your garden or yard so the dirt falls through it when you turn over the dirt in your garden or yard.
3) Simply put your leftovers into an old paper bag or plastic bag and then tie up securely so they won’t get dirty when you throw them away; this works especially well on things like fruit which are often messy because they ripen unevenly but still contain some juice after all their riper parts have been eaten away by insects (and only come out looking like dried fruit). You can also use old bags from takeout take-out restaurants if you want; just make sure to clean them thoroughly before using them!
4) Donate used paper towels to charities who need them most: restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals… even local schools! It will go a long way towards helping those in need without costing any money at all! One way I donate my used paper towels is through my employer’s company office — I use paper towels which have already been washed
Reusing items
Another way to reduce waste is to find new uses for items that you would normally throw away.
Reduce waste, conserve energy and improve the environment by reusing items that would otherwise be thrown away.
Recycling is a good thing. It helps reduce waste and it improves the environment. But it has to be done right.
The main reason to recycle is that it reduces landfill waste: if you recycle, you will likely produce less of it than if you don’t. But there are other reasons to do it too: You can cut your household bills by as much as $5,000 per year with an average savings of $2,000 per household each year (according to Eco-Friendly Living).
Recycling is a great way of reducing your personal environmental footprint; but there are a few things you can do in order to make the recycling process even more effective for your environment:
Start out small. If you are going to pay someone else to take something apart for you (say, an electronics recycling service or a reuse store), then start with something easy enough that you don’t have to pay someone else to do it for you. For example, if I want something stripped down and put into my own home — I want my clothes back in their original state as close as possible — then I need very small electronics (and clothing items).
Something like a laptop computer or tablet can be taken apart quickly enough that paying someone else to do so doesn’t actually make things any cheaper than they already would be if they were done themselves (and they won’t learn anything new while doing so).
Oddly enough, clothes (and especially shoes) tend not to get stripped down well enough for this purpose; so this is a good area for starting with something simpler than a larger machine or appliance and learning about how best to handle things from there. It also helps if the item being recycled has its own special information on what’s being recycled and what isn’t — including potentially recycling status — which makes it easier for potential recyclers or consumers of their products (if they ever come across them) understand better what’s being done with their stuff before it’s thrown away.
Make sure all the materials being recycled are properly identified so that consumers know exactly what is coming back into their lives again instead of just taking bits off old boxes and putting them together again later when they need more stuff in their life (or not!). In addition, electronic items should be identified by either an FCC label
Buying in bulk
Buying in bulk can help to reduce waste because you can avoid packaging and save money.
The single most important factor in reducing waste at home is to buy in bulk. Here are some tips:
1. Don’t buy less than you need. Sometimes, a smaller quantity of something can be even more expensive than buying it in bulk. For example: If you’re trying to replace an item, it may be more cost efficient to buy one or two small things rather than a big box full of stuff that will be thrown away after a few months.
2. Buy in bulk when you have time and money left over. Buying something late at night or on the weekend means you have a lot of time left over to do other things, such as cleaning the house, cooking meals, etc., which makes it more likely that you won’t see the item again until the next day.
3. Don’t wait until the last minute to buy items like toilet paper and paper towels. By then, prices are going up so if you want these items before the end of this month (or the next) you should buy now instead of waiting until next month when prices may be lower because of supply chain logistics issues or seasonal cycles (like Christmas).
4. When shopping for everyday supplies like toothpaste or detergent, find a store where they sell what you need right now rather than at a later date when prices may have dropped by 10%. The exception to this is if your local grocery store offers discounts on items due to seasonal sales — but remember that they won’t discount things that are not on sale every season!
5. Use coupons and sales as much as possible because it will often save more money than buying multiple coupons for each item (iPad promo codes saved me about $30 using my Amazon Prime account last year). Just make sure that coupons are not being expired just for shopping elsewhere (iPad coupon expired 5 days ago; iPad promo codes saved me about $10).
Planning ahead
Planning ahead can help you to avoid wasting food and other items.
As you probably know, it is very easy to throw away perfectly good food, and in some cases perfectly edible food. But it is a much harder task to avoid wasting food completely. This can be avoided by planning ahead.
You can save a lot of money by preparing ahead for meals and thus make sure you have all the ingredients you need when it comes time to cook.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many ways you can reduce waste in your home. Every little bit helps!
Disposable coffee cups are a form of rubbish. The waste generated from them amounts to around 100 million pieces of trash each year, and they create 1,500 tons of waste per day. In 2015, the average American household threw away 200 pounds of coffee cups.
So why do we use so many? The answer is simple: They’re cheap! You can buy a 50-pack for less than $3. If you throw one away now and then, you’re saving money, but it does take up space in your home — and it will last for two weeks at least, after which it will start to stink so badly you won’t want to keep using it.
As an environmentally conscious coffee snob (I still enjoy a cup every now and again), I am amazed at how much I waste when I drink coffee that comes in a plastic cup — and using a paper cup means I have some choice over the material used to make my drink.
So when I stopped drinking coffee in plastic cups in the beginning of this year, I decided to buy some compostable cups instead — not only did they cost less than $2 each (at Amazon), but they are also much more environmentally friendly to collect and use (compostable cups can be recycled).
If you are like me, then this is another reason why you should think twice before using disposable paper or plastic cups and invest in more eco-friendly alternatives instead.
