10 Ways to Reduce And Reuse

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Melissa
Filed Under Frugality, Household

October 15th is Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers band together to write about a single important issue: the environment. A Penny Closer decided to join in the effort to help raise awareness in our own little way; by showing how frugality and earth-friendly actions often go hand in hand.

Reducing your household waste not only helps the environment but it can help save you money, too. Imagine how much money and garbage bin space you might save if you could use items you typically dispose of to fill a household need.

Even the act of throwing away trash can cost money! For instance, some places may charge you for throwing away more garbage than their preset amount, not to mention the added expense of having to buy more garbage bags.

If everyone would find ways to reuse the things they would normally throw away, or choose durability over the convenience of disposability, we could make a real difference. Not only would we be helping the environment by reducing our impact on landfills, but we could reduce our demand for natural resources by consuming less.

Here are 10 ways you can cut down on your costs while cutting down on your trash.

Avoid single serving size products. Not only do they tend to cost more but they add extra packaging that will end up in landfills. Make your own single servings by putting individual portions in plastic containers or baggies that you reuse.
Buy just one set of bottled water and refill those bottles from the tap. Eric and I have been doing this for months now. We have 12 small water bottles that we wash, refill, and put in the fridge to chill. Imagine how many water bottles are thrown away each day. It will boggle your mind. And bottled water is pricey! Most of that bottled water is no better than tap or filtered tap anyways.
Don’t use the fully disposable electric toothbrushes or razors. Get replaceable razor heads and toothbrushes that allow changing the batteries. It seems like such a waste to throw out entire razors or a battery-run toothbrush when it stops working.
Reuse the plastic bags you get from the grocery store. Either bring them back to the store and reuse them for your next shopping trip or use them for other purposes. I pack up Eric’s lunches in a plastic grocery bag. It accommodates any size lunch and if he loses it there’s no problem. We also use our grocery bags for cleaning the litter boxes everyday. It saves us from wasting a big trash bag for a small job and gives the plastic bags another use.
Reuse packaging and boxes. Either reuse them for mailing other packages or use them for gift giving instead of buying gift boxes. I keep a variety of them in my garage for the holidays. They all look the same wrapped up anyways!
Use plastic containers instead of disposable baggies all the time. When you use baggies try to use them mainly for dry goods or non-greasy items. That way you can rinse and dry them for reuse.
Instead of using paper plates use plastic that can be washed and reused. You will have to buy less plates and throw less away.
Use rechargeable batteries instead of regular batteries. We blow through batteries for our camera. Although the rechargeables are more expensive upfront they have more than paid for themselves even in the short term.
Use paper towels sparingly and opt for washable dish towels. If I just need to dry my hands or wipe down the counters I go for the dishtowel. If it is something sticky, greasy, hazardous, or staining I use a paper towel. By thinking about when to use the paper towels versus the dish towels you will help conserve those expensive disposables and less will end up in the trash.
Reuse containers whenever possible. Why throw out that pickle jar when it could be used to hold paperclips or other small items? Could that old margarine tub be used like tupperware? Before you put it in the trash make sure you have no other uses for it around the house. Wear it out before you throw it out!

This is just a small sampling of ways we can save money and lower our impact on landfills by reducing and reusing. Get creative! Do you have any ideas on ways to reduce your trash? If so, please share them!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, get the posts via email, read more about the blog in our about page, or browse our archives. Thanks for visiting!

Comments

11 Responses to “10 Ways to Reduce And Reuse”

SAHMmy Says on October 15th, 2007 8:39 am

Great tips! We take hundreds of pictures with our digital camera each month–our battery charger ($31; came with 4 AA’s) has paid for itself several times over! I never thought about the environmental impact of disposable batteries before–good to know I’m doing something Green as well as saving money :)
Melissa on October 16th, 2007 8:09 am

Tell me about it, SAHMmy! Our camera is old and doesn’t get very far on a set of batteries. It’s even a struggle to get our rechargeables re-charged before we need them again. If we were using regular batteries we would be going through almost 8 AA batteries each day I used that camera. What a waste of money and resources!
Festival of Frugality #97 » Natural Family Living Blog on October 23rd, 2007 10:31 am

[...] Melissa adds another Blog Action Day post with 10 Ways to Reduce and Reuse. [...]
James on October 25th, 2007 4:29 pm

You should be careful with refilling plastic water bottles–certain kinds of common plastics have been found to leach bisphenol-A, a estrogen-like chemical, into the water itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol-A
Melissa on October 26th, 2007 9:21 am

@James - Welcome and thanks for your comment! I had heard a little about this issue but hadn’t really looked into it. After digging around it seems some plastics are deemed safer than others. I’m currently using #1 PETE bottles. What would you recommend using to carry water?

I found an interesting article on the subject here.
Anne on October 26th, 2007 12:06 pm

I always see the advice to buy bottled water and then refill the bottles. But we can do better! Stop supporting the industry and go for a permanent water bottle. I’ve been carrying Nalgene bottles (http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/index.html) around for years. They are practically indestructible, come in various sizes & colors, and can be frozen, filled with boiling liquids, and put in the dishwasher. Might have cost me $8 initially (though I once found one at a yard sale for $.25), but never having to buy bottled water and contribute to waste … totally worth it.
Melissa on October 30th, 2007 5:09 pm

@Anne - I think this idea is good one. I had no idea those bottles were so durable. Thanks so much for commenting!
rm on November 3rd, 2007 10:52 am

4. Remember that reduce comes before use. It would be better to take your own bags to the grocery and not have any plastic bags to begin with. You can take your lunch in a reusable bag. I’m not sure about the cat litter, but maybe someone else has an idea.
Melissa on November 4th, 2007 3:08 pm

@rm - I agree that it’s best to avoid using disposable plastic bags whenever possible. We have an entire drawer of plastic bags that we have been saving over the years so we figured it was best to make use of them in whatever way we could. I guess it makes me feel better. Thanks for commenting! It’s good to look at the alternatives to plastic bags.
karl heinz gilbert wason on November 6th, 2007 9:38 am

one way to reduce your trash is instead of buying bottled water, you should buy a brita purifier pitcher and fill it with tap water. a lot of the trash we Americans produce is from plastic water bottles. another way to cut down on this trash is to reuse these water bottles.
Melissa on November 6th, 2007 3:46 pm

@karl - Welcome! You’re right; getting a water filter would be a good idea as well. We never buy bottled water now that we reuse the plastic bottles with tap. I can’t even begin to imagine how many plastic water bottles get used and thrown away everyday.