Recycling...It Starts at Home

Recycling Starts at Home

My husband has started college this year. He is getting a degree to, basically, help save the Earth. He will be helping big businesses become more eco-friendly. Since he has decided to do this as his life's career, we have made many changes in our house as well. This started as a small project my husband wanted to do. If he was going to work to help companies make their businesses a better place, then we had to do the same thing at home or we would be hypocrites.

We are now recycling on a regular basis. We have started cutting back on water usage and electricity consumption. If it can be reused, we do it. We buy things a bit differently, too. We look for things that can be recycled, have been made from recycled materials, and things that will cause little to no harm to the environment. People say to us all the time, "Wow that is great! It must have been a hard change to get used to." You know what? It really wasn't.

We have tubs that keep the plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, etc all separate. As soon as one of us finishes with a glass or plastic bottle or aluminum can, we rinse it off and put it in its tub. It takes 2 seconds. Our trash we put out on the curb has gone from 2 barrels a week to half of a barrel, maybe one barrel if we have a busy week. My husband also is creating a place to put all of our food waste so that it can  be composted instead of sitting in a plastic bag in a landfill that will take YEARS to disintegrate. Right now, it is winter here so a garden is out of the question, but, as soon as spring hits, we will grow our own veggies and that will keep us from having the waste of packaging from store bought.

What we are doing sounds like it is a huge change, but it really isn't. If you do little things, they add up and they make a huge difference. I love my children. I want there to be an Earth left for not only my children, but my children's children. We all have to do our part. It doesn't take long to do all that we are doing and, yes, there is a lot more we can do. We learn of something new everyday that we can do to help save our Earth and make our world a better place. It is up to us to make sure we do those things. I am trying very hard to do those things; What are you doing?