What You're Missing When It Comes To Sustainability

I think by now most people are at least aware of some of the stuff they can do to reduce their footprint and be a bit more sustainable in their daily lives. The two most common things that people do are to consume less (reduce), and make sure that you’re putting everything you do use in the right bins (recycling). But one of the biggest ones that doesn’t get enough love these days is the third big R - re-use.

Reducing is kinda the gold standard when it comes to shrinking your environmental footprint. After all, you’re literally using less things, which results in less waste. Don’t get me wrong, either; recycling is a great way to change one thing into another, but it does have its limits. 

Recycling usually doesn’t mean that you’re turning a used plastic bottle into another one that’s exactly the same. More often than not, you’ll take a plastic bottle and transform it into something new that is less recyclable. You’re extending the lifespan of the materials, but inevitably it’ll get to a point where you can’t recycle it any more and it heads to landfill. That’s why reusing is so great. It’s a way to increase the life-span of something either before you put it through a recycling process or putting it in the garbage.

With that in mind, here are a few easy tips to get more out of what you’ve got in around the house:

Old Clothes

You’re almost definitely aware of thrifting and reselling, but I reckon you’d be hard pressed to find people who do these two things.

The first would be altering, mending or tailoring something to get some more life out of it. You can turn your old jeans into shorts, t-shirts into singlets, or even alter things that your ‘rents were going to throw out to fit you a bit better. It’s also worth keeping some stained or ruined clothes around just for stuff like yard work or using bleach to clean the bathroom! Beyond that, one thing that people always forget about are rags.

Old shirts and towels are great for cleaning of all kinds, and don’t have the same environmental issues that paper towels or microfiber towels can have.

Used takeaway containers

Let’s face it - every now and again you’re going to slip up, grab some takeaway and end up with those flimsy plastic takeout containers. The first thing I’d recommend is to check and see if they’re microwave or dishwasher safe - you might be able to get a few extra uses out of them if you’re not stressed about them being leaky. Other than that, my favourite things to do with takeout containers are put little loose bits and pieces in them (like leftover screws from IKEA furniture). They’re compact, stackable and you can write on them with permanent marker and not have to worry too much about being precious with them.

Plastic Bags

It’s honestly crazy to me that people buy plastic bags rather than just using the ones you get from stores. Grab yourself a basket or a compartment in your linen closet and get into the habit of tying up and storing all of your used plastic bags. Then you can use them to line all of your small bins, semi-waterproof stuff in storage, or even cut out sections to line the bottom of flowerpots. Use the fact that they take ages to break down to your advantage for once!

In today’s society, it’s almost impossible to dodge consuming perishable or ‘single-use’ goods - but even if you re-use some of these things one time, it reduces demand and increases the lifespan of those goods, which is a great way to find the silver lining.