#reusedmaterials

First thing is we reuse everything. We have a portion of our shelves dedicated to holding plastic food containers we have washed and are waiting to be used to hold leftovers, dried foods, as seed starting pots, etc. We also save any and all jars to hold dried herbs and food products.

Actually reuse is a big thing for us. We shop at places that use paper bags, which I then cut up to use as scrap paper for grocery lists, etc and then compost after that. We also have a small container with rubber bands from products, bread ties, etc.

If you can afford the start up costs and have the space, preserving your own food is excellent. We have a really small garden that produces a lot of food every year. My favorites are dehydrating (using a dehydrator that is at least 30 years old from back when my grandpa was into making jerky), freezing, and canning.

Also, use every bit of food. Right now in the freezer I have bags of apple cores and peeling, pear cores and peeling, and peach peels along with bags of bones and veggie scraps for broths. The fruit scraps will go towards making big batches of jelly when canning season is over. I'll probably use the pulp leftover to dehydrate and powder to add to baked goods following a success with crabapple jelly pulp. I've also made spaghetti sauce out of tomato peels. Anything rotting or absolutely unusable gets tossed in the compost.

Reusables!! Obviously in today's world you can't avoid plastic but you can reduce how much you use. We use reusable produce bags that I made out of scrap Tulle, reusable grocery bags, water bottles, ziploc bags, etc.

If you have a yard or space, composting is a big one! My grandma says she never realized how much food we tossed until we started one. You don't even have to spend money on it! I know people who use totes they drilled holes into, just toss it In a hole in their garden, etc. The one I use is an old hose winder (one of those cube ones( that broke and my work was going to toss. All I did was cut out the hose winding part and paint it pretty and it's held up for 2 years and counting so far.

Hang dry clothes. In summertime we almost exclusively dry our clothes on a line or on a clothes drying rack I found at a yard sale.

Keep your heat or ac a few degrees higher or lower depending on the season. This helps save energy being used to heat or cool your house.

Wash clothes in cool or cold water. I've been doing this for years and haven't noticed a difference.

Repair. You don't have to be a sewing genius to quickly repair a small tear, especially if it's just for household wear. A great winter time hobby to pick up when gardening season is over.

Trade! This can be as simple as hosting a clothing swap all the way up until trading items u grew/made for items they did! I barter with my coworkers all the time, just talk to them! I never would have known my coworker kept bees if she didn't really like my jellies and proposed a trade. I also trade any of my soft produce I don't have time to do anything with to my coworker with rabbits in exchange for poop for the garden.

Try to be in season from local sources such as garden stands, or just a local grocery store. One of our local farms grew bell peppers and was selling then 2 for a dollar! So we stocked up and dehydratedand froze lots of peppers for winter stews

Blended pumpkin guts makes an excellent pumpkin puree, even if you're just adding little bits of it to your dog's food :)

You can freeze a lot of stuff! Leftover spaghetti sauce, pumpkin puree, etc can all be frozen in a muffin pan and then put in bags for future use!

Forage! I personally mostly forage for greens and a few mushrooms I am confident in my ability in but that still bulks up your food supply as well as medicine supply! I made a salve using bartered beeswax and spring purple dead nettle and summer plantain (and some tea tree EO) for cuts and scrapes and it works miracles! My coworkers love it as well as friends and family

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Jasper Alexander

If you’ve been trying to go plastic free for awhile you’ve probably accumulated quite a few jars some way or another. I often buy in jars and will keep them for upcycling, but sometimes I run out of ideas on how to reuse them. These are some good ways to repurpose those jars. In addition to these some zero waste stores will take cleaned jars for people who don’t have containers but are looking for a refill. While some of these are exclusively for glass, some of these ideas work for plastic containers too! Happy upcycling!

Remember me wanting to do things to my old chandelier? Now it looks like this, and it's just bewitchingly pretty!

Before and after

It's about 25 yrs old, my mother bought it for the flat in Riga I used to have. It's weird. These pink glass icicles, fake-crystal pendants, golden arcs and all, so not me. But, like silver-colored shoes unexpectedly go with any outfit, it went in any room. Over the years it has lost many of its icicles. Some of them broke and stood on my shelf, waiting for the repair in silent reproach. Ugh.

Then it was my mother again who told me to just hang random things onto it, not necessarily the original decorations. Aha. That's where Bay's unused earrings and old Harry Potter merch went. And it was just the beginning.

Yesterday my youngest cat had his neutering surgery. It's, of course, a very easy thing to do, but I was still worried, naturally. To distract myself I went ballistic on the chandelier. I've stringed all the unused beads and decorations I could find, and that's what I got.

Now it has mushrooms, planets, magic wands, the Ravenclaw eagle and little bells.

It also doesn't clutter or dominate the interior which is particularly nice of it.

The shelf over the bed is in progress. ->

My little guy is fine as well.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

The 3 R's are the necessary foundations of conservation and waste management techniques for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Sustainability, in its environmental definition, is the ability to maintain conditions supporting biological life on Earth by preserving natural resources. The continued prevalence of diminished natural resources due to the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide and methane, from human activity over the past decades has impacted our course of sustainability on planet Earth. However, reducing, reusing, and recycling materials will lessen energy consumption instead of mining, extracting, and producing new goods with raw materials. These forms of waste management will allow trees to be planted in areas to lessen the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that would otherwise be used as landfills for trash.

REMEMBER RECYCLE REDUCE REUSE