Making smart decisions affect you and your family. Reusing items that are perfectly fine instead of buying new is better for the environment and easy on the pocketbook. Reusing reduces the amount of garbage in our landfills.
Here are some tips to incorporate the concept of “reuse” into your life:
- Garage sales and thrift stores are treasure troves
- Make a visit to your local thrift stores, you’d be surprised the treasures you can find at a price that can’t be beat. Besides, making your purchase at a thrift store often goes to help people in your community.
- Garage sales are also great places to find gently used items for bargain basement prices.
- Reusable water bottles
- Don’t grab that bottled water, purchase a reusable water bottle and fill at your tap at home; you will save money and the environment. Many bottled water products are simply tap water in wasteful one-use packaging. In most cases, the quality of bottled water is no better and you pay a whole lot more.
- Paper or plastic? Neither.
- Bring some reusable shopping bags with you when you shop or better yet keep some in your car. Plastic bags often end up as litter in your community and can harm wildlife. Paper bags use a diminishing resource — trees. There is a wide variety of cheap and stylish reusable shopping bags now available at places you shop.
- Trade
- Rather than buying that new magazine or book, trade books and magazines with friends and family.
- Local non-profit reuse stores
- Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore in Roseville is a discount building materials outlet. All store inventory is donated by area businesses and homeowners, and includes appliances, doors and windows, lighting fixtures, hardware and tools, flooring, furniture and more.
- ReCREATE collects clean usable waste / manufacturer byproducts and uses it for environmental lessons, art education and creative expression.
