The 3 R’s

Reduce, reuse, recycle tips! This green week, we want to help make things a bit easier and manageable for you when talking about the 3 R’s. Read below to see how your small difference can make a big impact!

Reduce

This can be a challenge and feel overwhelming at first. How can we make a difference when there’s so much clutter to begin with?

1. Declutter

Our first tip for reducing is starting in your home. Start decluttering, realizing what you do or don’t need at home and creating more space is going to help you start reducing what you bring into your home.
Put items into 3 categories;

1. Keep (these are items that have purpose, good energy and a proper place)
2. Giveaway, donate or sell (ps. selling is great but beware of the selling pile staying too long too, if items aren’t selling on marketplace and continue taking up space at home, you might want to consider another option for these items, or you’re back to square one!)
3. Recycle or trash it

It can feel counter intuitive to start because there is so much you’re going to end up with a lot of trash. Instead of letting it get you down, let it inspire you to do better and be more intentional about what you bring into your home.

2. be intentional

Now that our home is cleaner and you have the mental and physical space, we need to be intentional about our purchases and what we bring into our home. The biggest clutter trap is actually free items. It is so, so easy to say yes to something that is free, (or cheap) but these are the clutter items, we take and a few years later we find these items collecting dust and heading for the landfill.
When getting items ask yourself.

1. Does this item have a purpose and place in my life/home?
2. Say no to easy/free items (unless they have a purpose and a place)

Tip: this is a great mindset to introduce to your kiddos too! When you’re out, tell them why you might say no to certain items and yes to others. teach them to ask the same questions. keep in mind that their choices might be different than yours, but hold them accountable for their clutter too (with grace of course, we’re all learning!)

Reuse

Reusing items is a great way to help, but not always practical. When choosing what to reuse, always go back to your “reduce” mindset!

1. what does my reduce mindset say?

1. Will this item help me not bring more into my home/life?
2. Or will this item just become clutter?

It’s important to ask these questions because there can be so many different uses for things and we can get excited with creativity but we also don’t want to clutter our home with things we don’t need because this will ultimately become ciaos and no use will come out of the items.

2. What habits can you change?

When shopping start being more intentional with your purchases. You will of course, create garbage and not everything can be reused, but how can you make small changes to make bigger impact? Ask yourself these questions;

1. Can the packaging (like glass) be reused, recycled or will it need to be thrown away?
2. Could I buy the clothes I need second hand?
3. How many meals can I get out of this grocery order with as little waste as possible?
4. Can I buy this same item with less packaging?
5. Can I support local instead of bigger companies?
6. Can my concerns be voiced? (Your voice matters! Speak up about things being done that cause more waste than necessary. Remember that this is a problem that is not only on individuals but hugely on bigger companies who have more power to change things)
7. Can I fix this item instead of buying a new one?
8. Can I get this item used instead of new?
9. Can this left over meal be made into a new one?
10. How long will this item last me?
11. Are there products that I will use to help me reduce and reuse instead of producing waste/recycling?

Recycle

Recycling! Of course we all know to recycle, but it can be hard to remember and it can be time consuming but making that extra little effort will make a difference.

1. choose recyled products

There are some great companies that use recycled products that you can find!

2. Choose products that can be recycled

What products can you choose that can be recycled instead of throwing them in the trash?

3. Ask about recycling

When you recycle, be sure to ask your local recycling depots what can and can’t be recycled there. I had spent years buying and recycling some glass items (like olive oil and pasta sauce jars) and later found out that the recycling depot had been tossing them instead of recycling. When we know, we can make more informed choices on purchases and where we spend our own energy in disposal

4. composting

Composting is a great way to recycle our food products, we talk about composting in our previous post HERE.

Be Kind

Lastly, I want you to remember to be kind to yourself. We aren’t going to have it all figured out, definitely not at first, our world is not made to be functionally zero waste, and doesn’t make the 3 R’s easy for us. Our choices matter to show companies that we care about our environment and the impact their products make.

Remember that a small difference will make a big impact over time! You got this!

Let us know if this helped! Tag us on Instagram and Facebook @snak.bakery