reduce, reuse, recycle

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, are three very important actions in our world today. As we strive to go green, these three actions do many things. It reduces the waste that ends up in landfills, keeps good items that still work out of landfills, and keeps materials that can be used again – you guessed it – out of landfills. It results in less hazardous waste being compressed into the ground and a greener cleaner Earth.

Alright, that’s enough preaching, let me show you one way I reduced, reused, and recycled. Hopefully, that’ll inspire you to do the same.

For the Teen Week graduation class, I always purchase flowers and have the kids use them to arrange centerpieces for the dining tables. Naturally, we had a red, white, and blue theme last Friday. Forty-eight hours we were leaving town and I didn’t want the three bunches of flowers to go to waste.

I made up a new simple arrangement to give to my dad, to our house-sitter, and to our neighborhood guard gate. Since I didn’t want to have to “collect” back any vases I used, I dug through the recycle bin and pulled out the tomato cans we’d used to make our Spaghetti with Sicilian Meatballs.

I think they look adorable and it feels good not only to recycle the flowers but to reuse the cans too. Lots of energy is spent on recycling so reusing is often the best way to reduce waste and resource consumption.