Blogger Friend School Assignment #24 {The Three R's}

This week's assignment is The Three R's -- Reduce, Recycle, and Re-use.  I thought since today is Earth Day and this month is Arbor Day that we all could share ideas or tips that we use for recycling, reducing or re-using items in our home.  Do you recycle at all?  Does it just seem nearly impossible to recycle?  Trying to catch every piece of trash that goes into the garbage is a hard one for me too.  I have a friend who is very diligent with it and so are her children!  It amazed me to see how they respect nature and use the Three R's in their home.  I challenge you all to write about your ventures with recycling, reducing, and re-using your trash and take a pledge to at least try to use some of the tips that you read about on this assignment.  Don't forget to add your favorite scripture for this assignment.

We do recycle, not everything we could, but most.  We pay for trash and recycling pick-up, so we need to get our money's worth!  We recycle almost all plastic and glass containers from the kitchen, and all the cans.  We save our aluminum cans (soda cans) and crush them ourselves and deliver them once every few months to a place in the city that pays for them.  It gives a little extra money back that we often give to the kids because its their job to crush the cans. 

 

The most obvious way we "reuse" is things like the containers that sour cream comes in.  My DH takes lunch to work, so these kind of containers are often good for leftovers that he can take along.  When I buy deli meat, it often comes in those Gladware type containers - that is a good deal too. 

 

We have a woodstove for heat, and we use paper packaging, newspapers, and scrap cardboard tubes that my DH brings home from work as our firestarters.  Our efforts to reduce electricity/energy use at home is purely out of concern for the amount of our electric bill!!  I would love to use the outdoor line for my laundry, if only I could figure out WHY my wonderful energy-efficient front-load washer won't dispense anything out of the fabric softener reservoir???  Only if I wash in warm water, which kind of works against me in the save electricity department, doesn't it.  I do have a call in to an appliance repair guy, so hopefully we can figure that out.

 

I haven't yet bought any of the reusable canvas grocery bags that most of the stores sell, but I keep meaning to.  What's funny is that I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen other customers with these bags.  With all the people driving around big gas-guzzling SUV's with "Save the Earth" bumper stickers, I'm a little surprised.  LOL 

 

I believe in taking care of our environment, and being wise stewards of resources; so I gladly recycle as much as I can,  use energy wisely, and choose eco-friendly products wherever possible.  However, I refuse to let the eco-terrorists guilt me into doing anything in a futile effort to "save the planet"  This is probably why I'm slow to buy canvas grocery bags.  It's my silly silent passive-aggressive protest.  LOL  Plus I guess I do care what people think - I don't want anyone to think that I'm an eco-terrorist! hahaha.  Okay, I really did look at the price of the canvas bags at the market this morning, and if I hadn't been in such a hurry (I really needed to use the washroom!) I probably would have bought a couple to get me started.  I hereby promise that I will start stocking up on canvas bags, beginning with my very next trip to the grocery store.  Remind me.  I've definitely got enough plastic grocery bags stored up to stock my small size trash cans for a LONG time, so it's not like I need to bring any more of those ones home.  

 

(I think that was my pledge: acquire and use canvas grocery bags)

 

What we SHOULD and COULD do, but don't () is grow any of our own veggies, or compost.  Now the compost I could do - I just need to get started.  The vegetable garden would have to be all DH and the kids.  Me = black thumb.  Me = not even the tiniest shred of interest in planting, weeding, or even harvesting.  I know it's cheaper to grow our own, I know it's healthier, and I even know that it would be more emotionally satisfying to eat something I grew myself; but I have not reached the point where all the benefits outweigh my laziness and disinterest in the project.  *sigh* 

 

We have been members of the Arbor Day Foundation for many years - for $15 they send you all those trees!!!  I think I let the membership lapse in the fall, but may join up again next chance I get.  We have a little sapling in the kitchen that DH is going to plant soon. 

 

"The earth is the LORD's, and all that is in it, the world, and all who live in it." ~ Psalm 24:1