Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: What You Didn’t Know About The 3 R’s

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: What You Didn’t Know About The 3 R’s

We’ve all heard the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” For many of us, we’ve heard it since we were born. It’s been around since the environmentally-friendly movement started in the 1970s.

I always understood it to mean what I assume most people think it means: If you want to be environmentally-friendly, do one of these three things: 

• reduce the amount you use
• reuse what you already have, get it used, or
• recycle it.

That ‘or’ is important: it suggests that you should do one of these things. That you have a choice, and each one is equally important.  The slogan implies that all of these things are equally environmentally-friendly.

They are not.

So of the 3 R’s, which is the most environmentally-friendly? Should we prioritize one over the others? Why aren’t they all equal? Let’s dive in!

The 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Recycling: The worst of the three

It turns out, that when you recycle something, you need to use a LOT of resources to do so: everything must be sorted by both machines and by people, recycling glass and aluminum require melting it down (usually burning fossil fuels), recycling paper means using a lot of water, and in all cases, it’s cheaper to just make something new than it is to recycle something old. In the case of plastics, as we are recently learning, the concept of plastic recycling is mostly a myth. 

Plastic Recycling Is A Myth

Plastic recycling is a myth not because it’s not possible, but just because it is much cheaper to produce new plastic than it is to sort plastics into their different types, purify them, melt them down, and reshape them (that’s assuming it’s a type of plastic that is recyclable at all, which many aren’t). In order to convince people to buy more plastic products, the fossil fuel industry has run campaigns for decades to convince people that plastic is recyclable and that we can all use it without worry. Turns out that was a lie. Of all the plastic that is used in the U.S., only about 8.4% of it was ever recycled. And a lot was just shipped to China to be recycled, with very little recycling happening in the United States. In 2018, China, inundated with plastic waste, stopped accepting waste plastic creating a massive stockpile of plastic trash that we can’t handle in the U.S. It is growing even to this day, with much of it just being sent to landfills. 

So recycling, while possible, is energy and resource-intensive, and is actually a pretty bad solution to dealing with waste. This is by far the environmentally worst option of the three R’s and is only marginally better than making things new.

Reusing: A nice alternative

Reusing is far and away better than recycling as a form of waste management for a very simple reason: when you reuse something, a purpose is served but there is no further environmental damage done.

When we make new things, from computers to tables to pencils, there is an environmental impact in creating it: electricity, materials and resources, and greenhouse gas emissions. The moment you buy something, some environmental damage has already been done, and you are responsible for it. The next environmental damage that will occur due to that object is when it is disposed of. By reusing something, buying it used, or repairing one that you already have, you eliminate the impact of creating a new thing, and you’ve delayed the waste phase of throwing it away. Both very positive effects for the environment!

Reducing: The Eco King

“Reduce” is the top of the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” triangle. Maybe not in the actual logo itself, but in terms of it’s environmental benefit. By reducing the amount that you use, you eliminate the need to buy new, reuse, or recycle! Do you really need 30 plates in your house? Do you really need that veggie chopper you bought when you saw the commercial on TV? Do you really have to buy those ‘disposable’ plastic cups for your camping trip? How about all of the clothes you have? By simply not using a thing, we do the ultimate environmentally-friendly act: we eliminate our impact from having that thing completely.

Reducing how much of everything that we use is the best possible thing you can do for the environment.

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is a Priority List

So what have we learned? It turns out that the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is in order of priority! 

The absolute best thing you can do for the environment is to reduce the amount of everything that you use. Don’t buy it if you don’t need it, or only buy as much as you need. Once you’ve done everything you can to reduce the amount you use, don’t throw it away when you’re done. Find a way to reuse it: fix it, use it for something else, or give it to someone else who can. Finally, if there is absolutely nothing else you can do with it other than throwing it in the trash, then you can put it in the recycle bin, assuming it’s actually recyclable.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: Don’t Recycle These!

There are certain things that many people assume are recyclable but aren’t. DO NOT put non-recyclable things in the recycle bin! Some of the commonly mistaken items are:

• Tissues/Paper towels/Napkins
• Anything with food still stuck to it (pizza boxes, takeout containers, etc.)
• Paper coffee cups 
• Plastic utensils
• Plastic bags
• Styrofoam
• Ceramics
• Broken Glass

Putting things that aren’t recyclable in the recycle bin creates more work for the recycling centers in trying to sort everything. It also means that occasionally non-recyclable materials end up getting mixed in with recyclable things, ruining entire batches of recycled materials. 

If you’re not sure whether something is recyclable, put it in the trash. But don’t just take my word for it:

Learning to become more environmentally-friendly is a process. It takes time and can feel annoying or bothersome to begin with, but it’s part of what we have to do because of our position in the world: we’re the smartest living animal on the planet and we’ve learned to make unnatural things that don’t exist in nature. Things that nature has no way to handle, and has not been given nearly enough time to evolve systems that can. We have to be better stewards of the planet and take responsibility for our own waste: after all, it’s made for our convenience and to make our lives better at the expense of the natural world. It’s only right that we take care to dispose of it properly.