Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

Today’s society is heavily based on materialism. The media is always advertising what you need to make your life more complete. Advertising uses psychology to its advantage, to capture the attention of many and persuade them into buying items. Take for example the new green revolution, many people are told that they should buy brand new energy efficient appliances, put down cool sustainable bamboo floors, newer computers, better clothes that help kids in developing countries, etc. Yes, these are all cool and appealing but what the consumer is doing is just consuming more. More resources are being wasted as more products are being made and more people are buying them. This is what makes our capitalistic society; consumption. Now consumption is not necessarily a bad thing, its just the rate at which we consume that must be watched. On this planet, there are now more than 7 billion people and each of these people has the desire to better their life. When people become higher class, they tend to consume more. The more energy a nation consumes the higher the GDP per capita. And with our growing population, we as a people must be careful as to how much we consume. The best solution to this is to reduce consumption, reuse items, and lastly, recycle.

Our society; however, focuses on the recycling aspect rather than reducing and reusing. Recycling is a great option as opposed to that of trashing since the item’s elements would be used again into a different and brand new form again. It uses less energy and resources than trashing and reproducing a new item from scratch; therefore, it is a more economical choice to recycle. Nonetheless, energy is still used to recycle when an item can simply be reused or re-purposed. Take for example my apartment, nearly every piece of furniture and household item was used; my sofa, my dining table and chairs, my décor, my side tables, one of my lamps, my dishes, my bed, and my coffee table. Not only do you save money not having to buy these items, you save the environment just by reusing them. Some people are not fond of doing this because sometimes the items don’t look as great but in my case mine do! I take great pride in them because I gave them a home and I also refinished some of my furniture’s surfaces with new stain/paint. Reusing definitely gives you pride and confidence especially when you refinish the item yourself!

So please reuse as much as you can! This will ultimately reduce the amount you consume and when an item becomes spent in your eyes recycle it! Even pieces that you believe will have no life afterwards because it is so worn down may be a treasure for someone else. They may not use it wholly but they will use some part of it even if its scraps for their own dream creation. Don’t let the media tell you that you need their item because that’s the only solution. Explore your creativity and try something old!