Attempts to learn the three R-s - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

The feeling of not doing enough was always there. Drying glaciers on our national park visits, overflowing trash cans in public places, my closet space running out mostly from old, no longer used clothes, mountains of paperwork at all corners of the home which we never look at or need, a table full of abandoned keyboards, adapters and prehistoric laptops . It made me slightly uncomfortable, while I liked facebook posts about zero waste lifestyles or discussed global warming at dinner parties. A lingering thought at the back of my mind like an unwelcome guest. I recycled the junk mail religiously at home, and made sure to throw paper wrappers in the recycle box at work, and made peace with myself.

And then, a few months back, we went to the Florian Schulz National Geographic show. At the Seattle Benoraya Hall. This show overwhelmed me at so many levels that I was completely surprised by my own reaction. It was not so much about the amazing photography or the background stories Florian narrated with so much elan for each picture or video. It was his passion. For this world, specially the Arctic Refuge and all wilderness. The tears in his eyes and the cracked voice while he talked about fracking in Alaska resuming under the current US President’s orders. That is when I felt that I needed to start thinking about this movement to reduce waste at an individual level. Start small, but with consistency and seriousness, and have a plan.


While I use the word ‘plan’, I didn’t really intend to create a formal document with progressive steps. It was more about learning what the three R-s really mean, reading up on what an individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint, and watching entertaining videos by green movement thinkers. For someone just starting out, here are some very simple and doable set of steps : https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-reduce-global-warming-1203897


With a basic understanding and a lot of good intentions, I looked around my house, And realized, that this is a momentous task. Even the small steps take a life of their own, and generate smaller steps needing a lot of time, energy, and above all patience, to handle. But I put on a determined face, and started rummaging the closets, It is surprising that even in a small house like ours, and given that none of us are really into buying too many clothes, the number of slightly used but currently abandoned clothes in the corners of closets is mind boggling. It took me approximately three weekends to identify and bag the clothes that I felt were in good enough shape to be donated. The process of sorting the clothes can be amusing and frustrating at the same time. It involves staring at a dress and wondering why I didn’t wear that when I was slimmer, or younger, or could simply carry it better. But I eventually got through them all, and ended up with about 8 large bags of clothes that I very gladly drove to Goodwill, and donated. I left with a newfound sense of respect for the Goodwill workers and volunteers, who will now have to sort through these mountains of donations from thousands of donors, and label each item for a specific destination or recipient group. If you (like me) are wondering, this task corresponds to the ‘Reuse’ component of the three R-s.


The house definitely felt lighter after the clothes reduction exercise :) Next up, recycling papers and electronics - an even more daunting task. In a strange twist of luck, our upstairs bathroom had a water leak that went into the walk in closet next to the bathroom, which was stacked with boxes full of papers from our move to the US 20 years back, or move to this house 10 years back. Because of the water leak, we were forced to empty that closet. And took that as an opportunity to sort through the paperwork. This wasn’t a one person job, and I got the family involved. Again, three more weekends of frenzy, upset people and arguments about which documents are important enough to retain, ensued. The end result was the recycle bin being filled up three weeks in a row, and a long overdue recycling task crossed out of our list. While this is really a task that can be classified as making the house clutter free, I listed here because of the sheer volume of papers recycled. Handling the unused electronics was a relatively simple task, once I found out Goodwill accepts e-waste as well. It is so easy to box and drive the potential e-waste devices to the Goodwill store, yet I have been guilty before of discarding batteries, power adapters etc in the trash, knowing that they can have potentially toxic materials such as lead or mercury. But, never again!

The biggest change in my family’s lifestyle and possibly the one with the most impact is switching to composting our food scraps. This had been on my mind for a while, but I was a little daunted by the logistics. In December, my son completed his college and came back home, and was a little horrified by all the food scraps going into the trash bin. He immediately set us up with a small odor proof kitchen compost bin, and compostable bags, Easy, right? Not so fast :) It takes a lot of practice and effort to make sure everything food related goes into the compost bin under the kitchen counter. Initially, things like tea bags/leaves, egg shells, discarded chicken fat/skin did not really make my list of compostable items, I was mostly limiting it to the vegetable peels. We made the switch slowly with constant policing by my son :) And in two months, we are at a place where only non-recyclable plastic goes in the trash can, and we barely have one trash bag out in the bin per week. On the other hand, the number of compostable bags in the yard waste keeps going up! It is a great way to monitor the proper disposal of our food waste, and gives us a great feeling of doing the right thing.

I realize that implementing the three R-s is a continuous process, and will evolve as we as a family keep doing it. It also is something that all family members need to believe in, and invest time and effort in. This is just a start for us, and there are things that we could do a lot better, but keep getting failing grades in :) Concluding this blog post with a list of things we could drastically improve on :

• Remembering to take that cloth grocery bag everytime we go grocery shopping - it’s a constant struggle :)
• Replacing all lights with LED bulbs - this is a work in progress and will take a while
• Waste less water in the showers - a luxury that is hard to give up
• Turn off the switches - I am the only one guilty of leaving switches on, and am getting better at it
• Thermostat settings - we are pretty good with it, but can get better with investing in a smart thermostat
• Spread the word - That is what this blog past is about!