This post is by guest blogger Thursday Bram. You can read more by Thursday at One Vote Matters.
Recycling is a pretty big deal these days — if you don’t separate your paper and aluminum, you’re practically some sort of heathen! But I’m willing to step up and say that I’m not so fond of recycling. I’m not a big believer in it.
Consider paper waste. I put maybe one small bag of paper waste in the recycling bin each week. I’d much rather reduce the amount of paper that I use in the first place than try to recycle it. Furthermore, most of my paper waste doesn’t really make it to the trash can. Instead, I shred more of it and repurpose it. Those shreddings become packing materials — the only time I use Styrofoam peanuts is when someone else has shipped them to me because I think that maybe if they keep circulating they won’t wind up in a landfill. They also become art materials — paper mache, collages, whatever.
I think repurposing is often more valuable to creating a green office or home than recycling. There are chemicals, energy usage and other considerations when trying to effectively recycle materials, but reusing materials removes them from what is still a less than perfect cycle. I work on reducing my waste overall, rather than trying to stuff more into my recycling bin.
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Picture from sxc.hu.
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