Reduce, Reuse and Recycle! Step Two: REUSE

Continuing on from the 3 R’s post
These are my examples on how to perform them to help protect the environment.

The second R is Reuse:

1.)You can reuse plastic and glass bottles many times over.
Bottled water is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. Water is available through your tap! The only thing you buy when you buy bottled water is… lower quality water and the plastic.





So instead of constantly buying bottled water and wasting your hard earned money on a nonsense product, just buy ONE REUSABLE bottle that you’ll never have to throw away!
(I reuse my fair bottle for keeping water in my room when I’m thirsty!)
They even make cute reusable bottles that you’ll never want to get rid of.

(I so want this bottle!)

And if you’re scared that your tap water may be somewhat contaminated, a company called Brita makes all kinds of water filters.



2.) Now it's time to get creative.
A big thing people need to reuse (as I've said many times before) is PLASTIC.
And there are things that we use everyday that has plastic. Whether it be the product or the packaging.
For some quick examples: bread, jello cups, toilet paper, cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, juice, candy bars, saimin, seasoning.


Everyday household items turn themselves into this

A heaping pile of non-degradable plastic crap.
(And this is just the fence line of the landfill)

It's difficult to reuse plastic packaging, like saimin or seasoning packets, since they're meant to be "disposable". But I'm still trying to think of a way to reuse these.
However! Plastic products like mayonnaise jars, bread packaging, tofu containers, cereal packaging and even sour cream containers CAN be reused.
(You just have to get a little creative with it.)

Here on Maui, locals love chili pepper water to add some spice to their snacks or meals. And mayonnaise jars and wine bottles make the perfect reusable item for it.
People get a little picky with their chili pepper water depending on how sweet or spicy they want it, so they make their own using either mayonnaise jars, wine bottles, ketchup bottles and even peanut butter jars.

You can reuse bread packages for holding pictures you have developed if you don't have an album to put them in. You can even reuse them to hold important papers from getting wet.
(My family and I did this on tsunami day for fear if something were to happen, maybe this would keep important documents from getting wet, since we couldn't put everything into our car.)

You can reuse items like sour cream containers and margarine containers as tup-a-ware for your homemade lunch!
(My mom and I do this all the time, since the cold cuts and margarine she buys comes in containers just like tup-a-ware.
Why waste money on shamancy-fancy tup-a-ware when you can just reuse a container.
It's not THAT difficult, is it??

3.) Another pollutant problem is aluminum.


People here on Maui do a pretty good job recycling aluminum since they get $0.05 for every can they recycle.
But sometimes, what they can't get money for are the things they DON'T recycle. Like different kinds of canned goods.


But like I said before, you just have to get creative!
I reuse products like these for simple things like holding my pens and pencils.


If you're a gardener, reuse these items for your baby plants, instead of buying plastic pots.
They may be heavier, but is it really that big a deal??

These are just some of the things I've thought of.
I had to limit about 3 examples to each of the 3 R's because my list was way too long and I didn't want readers getting bored with sifting through all my ideas.
But if you DO want my complete list of ways to reuse things, feel free to drop a comment or send me an email.

Like I said.
Just get creative!