Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Who's in for November?

Okay, it's Friday afternoon, I'm staring down a to-do list and I have an old Judy Tenuta routine from the 80s going through the back of my head, but I am going to work through all of those obstacles to rally y'all for the penultimate monthly Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. We have persisted through ten months and we are within reach of the finish line. Take a moment to ponder the cumulative effect of all the small changes you made.

My monthly challenge will be 66.67% holiday-centric, since we are three weeks off from Thanksgiving. I'm going to reduce a wee little bit of consumer consumption by schlepping the necessary spices and specialty kitchen equipment to my brother's place in Florida so he doesn't have to buy allspice berries and a microplane grater for a once-a-year event. I'm going to reuse a lot of the aluminum foil we'll use in preparing the feast. And on the home front, I'm going to recycle the big pile of dirt in our front yard that has been sitting under the construction debris from our (almost) finished porch project.

So what are your reduce-reuse-recycle goals this month? Come, stud-puppets! Share with me your dreams!

Comments

[David]

Hi, I love how you are running this blog. I just started a blog of my own and I was wondering if you would like to do a link exchange with my site. My site can be found at:

Absolutesportsreport.blogspot.com

If you want to do this, just leave a comment on my site, on any post, and I’ll link you later that night.

Thanks,
Dave

[Lisa S.]

Dave -- thanks for writing. I do prefer to keep the comments on entries topical and relevant to the entry matter. This way, other readers and commenters don't run the risk of wasting their time on a brainless and off-topic string of postings.

If you're telling me what you're planning on reducing/reusing/recyling for this month, this is the place for you to comment. If you're asking for a link exchange, please do so using the e-mail link on the bottom right.

[drunken monkey]

Anyway!

I'll go holiday-centric too, now that I have a bit of guilt about spending nearly $70 to get a Wii to another province for my little brother, in time for his birthday this weekend.

I'll try to reduce my consumption of brand-new goods this holiday by looking into used options where appropriate (ie. Wii games for the aforementioned brother), and I'll also try to buy my gifts locally for local peeps, with an attempt to try to avoid mass-produced items that are probably covered in lead paint. There is no getting around the fact that I have to ship some of my gifts, because I don't go home for Christmas. I'm not sure if it's better, environment-wise, to buy them here and mail them via Canada Post or buy them from an online retailer and have them deal with the shipping. I sure as hell know what's cheaper, though.

Oh, and I'll cut down on the wrapping accoutrements this year as well. I take no special pleasure in gift-wrapping, and I have no particular talent for it, so it won't pain me to just not buy bows for the presents this year. Besides, magazine pages make excellent gift wrap, right?

[Tracy]

Despite a woeful participation in the monthly R-R-R to date, I'm proud to say that I talked the fam into completely going off bottled water. Yikes! We got a Pur filter for the faucet, and a Brita tank for the fridge, and... we'll see.

[Jecca]

My stepson has decided to be a vegetarian, except for fish. (And except for pepperoni and salami, if he feels like it. But anyway.) So we are significantly reducing our meat consumption, making at least four meatless dinners a week now.

I am reusing a jam jar to store the partial bag of dark-brown sugar I had in the cabinet and plan to find more reuses for the washed out, empty jars sitting back by the Tupperware and Rubbermaid.

My workplace is now recycling cardboard in addition to paper and beverage containers, so I am going to remember to break down my boxes and take them out to the recycle dropoff spot by the warehouse door.

[bureinato]

I'm in, late, but I'm in.

Reduce - will call all the catalog companies and cancel their catalogs. I get emails from the folks I want to shop and am tired of recycling all that paper.

Reuse- Over the past few months I've been switching to rechargeable batteries. And I just need to get a few more and I'll be all switched over.

Recycle - I will take my grandmother's old fur scraps and donate them to wildlife rehabilitaters. I've been meaning to do this for a few years. There is a local place where I can drop off the fur.
http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/fur_and_trapping/coats_for_cubs_doubles_return_1.html

[KristinT]

You always inspire me! My 3R Thankgsiving is going to be: use less than 3' of tin foil (and recycle it afterward) on our total meal, re-use, I woodchipped my xmas tree last year and am laying it down as mulch in my garden, and for recycle, in a big houseclean, I found a cache of old eyeglasses and am going to find a place to donate them - suggestion on where, welcome.

Does cooking a turkey count as recycling? It ends up being about 10 extra meals!

[Lisa S.]

KristinT -- A lot of optometrists' offices will either collect old eyeglasses or be able to point you to the Lion's Club, which distributes eyeglasses for re-use. I think Lenscrafters works with the Lion's Club on the Gift of Sight, so maybe they'll take the glasses?

Also, I think turkeys are the ultimate reduce-reuse-recycle component: turkey soup from the bones and organ meat, turkey sandwiches, turkey casseroles, turkey tacos ... a good roast turkey goes a long way!

[Polly]

Here's my (late) entry: I just was reading about laundry balls (which apparently don't do anything), and I found out that you can probably use far less than the recommended amount of detergent and still get clean laundry. So I'm going to reduce the amount of laundry detergent I use by half, and see what happens.