[Announce] Day 6: Reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, make it over, make do, do without.

[Robert Waldrop]

30 Days Towards Sustainability

Day 6: Reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, make it 
over, make do, do without.

Frugality is the essence of today's tip. All of us 
have grandparents and great-grandparents that made 
it through the Great Depression, and this advice 
comes directly from them. Perhaps I should start 
by saying. . . "Your grandparents called and told 
me to tell you 'waste not, want not'. . ."

REDUCE: In the words of one popular sustainability 
campaign - Use Less Stuff! You are NOT your stuff. 
Your stuff is NOT you. You do NOT need an 
ever-increasing pile of stuff to have a nice life. 
Indeed, an ever-increasing pile of stuff, even if 
it is nice, expensive stuff, is a serious threat 
to the quality of your life. The purpose of life 
is not the accumulation of stuff. Enough stuff 
already! Just Use Less Stuff. Teach your kids to 
Just Use Less Stuff. (And teach them well.)

REUSE: Reuse the stuff you already have. Don't use 
it once or twice and then wrap it carefully in 
black plastic and throw it away to be buried in a 
landfill. Future archeologists already have enough 
stuff to sort through from this era. They do not 
need yours. After you eat the pickles, reuse the 
jar. Store seeds, macaroni, beans, peas, corn, 
flour in it. Drink home-brewed beer from it. Or 
home-brewed soda pop. Or water. Be creative and 
adaptable.

RECYCLE: If you just can't find another use for 
something in your household, RECYCLE! This can 
include putting appropriate stuff in the recycling 
containers provided by your city's solid "waste" 
service. But it can also include donating useful 
items to charities, thrift stores, or gifting them 
to other people. Have a garage sale! Or have a 
gift event (put everything out like a garage sale, 
only put a sign up - "FREE STUFF"). Metals can be 
sold at recycling centers. In most areas, you can 
put metals out on the curb and they will be picked 
up by roadside recyclers and taken to metal 
recycling companies.

REPAIR: These days, people often just replace 
something that simply needs repair. We think this 
is "cheaper", but that's because many costs are 
externalized. Some items are manufactured in a way 
that makes it impossible to repair them. Avoid 
buying such items. Find good local repair people 
and support them with your business.

MAKE IT OVER: Reinvent new uses for items. For 
example, I wanted a pot hanger for my kitchen. So 
I rustled around among my stuff, and found the 
grate of an outdoor grill and some lengths of 
chain. All that I had to actually buy was some 
u-bolts, and voila, I have a nice pot hanger in my 
kitchen. Pots and pans hang from S hooks that we 
made from coat-hangers. When we need something, 
often our first impulse is to rush to the store 
and buy it. The sustainability choice, however, is 
to make "buying something new" your LAST resort. 
First ask yourself if this is something you really 
need. Second, see if you have the "raw materials" 
to make over something. Next, see if you can find 
it in the "after market" (thrift stores, garage 
sales, flea markets, etc.) Only as a last resort 
should you go to the store and buy something new.

MAKE DO and DO WITHOUT: EEK! How can you say this! 
We are consumers! We have a duty to consume! That, 
of course, is the attitude that brought us to the 
present situation. Learning to do without, 
learning to make do with what we have, are 
important sustainability disciplines. Life has 
limits and boundaries, we should get used to that 
fact. And this isn't negative, either. Less stuff 
means less work. Everything takes maintenance. It 
has to be cleaned. It has to be stored. If you 
want it then you have to find it. The more stuff 
you have, the more time you will spend cleaning, 
storing, and finding. Life is short, why spend it 
cleaning, storing, and finding a bunch of stuff?

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SUMMARY: Do not buy so much stuff, do not store so 
much stuff, do not live with so much stuff, do not 
haul around so much stuff, do not use so much 
stuff, and do not throw away so much stuff and 
bury so much stuff in the ground, where it becomes 
useless waste.

Bob Waldrop

http://www.bettertimesinfo.org

http://www.oklahomafood.coop

These tips may be freely forwarded, credit for 
authorship is appreciated. They are posted online 
at 
http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/30days.htm .