The 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Reduce

Reduction of waste materials produced, can be achieved by not creating waste in the first place – or to use resources as little as possible, ie. reduce your water and electricity usage at home or at work – use less lights or energy saving lights and bulbs that can produce the brightness you need but consumes less energy.

You can help to reduce household water wastage by having larger and less frequent laundry loads.

By reducing the use of electricity, you can help to reduce Global Warming too!

Here’s a Solar Powered LEDTorch Light that I’ve been using for about 8 years! Yes, you read it right – 8 years without the need to purchase batteries for it and in fact, it have always been in my room with no direct sunlight!

I bought this from IKEA about 8 years ago. It cost about S$19

(Note, I use this as a torch light, not a room light – ie. its not on 24/7 to light up my room, but as a search light to find something in the dark)

You can also consider getting Solar Powered Battery Chargers for your mobile phone and devices as well.

Reuse

Reusing items can help reduce waste too, eg. bring your own reusable cloth tote / grocery / eco bags instead of getting plastic bags when you are out shopping at supermarkets.

Check out some of these foldable and Fashionable eco tote bags from Qoo10 Singapore! Now, who says tote bags have to be boring?

You can also repurpose and reuse an item to give it a New Life, eg. an old pair of jeans could be cut and sewn into a bag or a pencil case.

Donate clothes that you’ve outgrown, or clothes that you do not wear anymore.

When you upgrade your computers or other electronic gadgets, instead of disposing the old (but workable) ones, you can donate them too!

Consider donating them to your local Salvation Army.

It’s great that you’ve decided to donate items that you do not need (that could be useful to others)! However, before bringing ALL your items to your local Salvation Army, it might be good to contact them first :

• For Singapore friends, check The Salvation Army, Singapore here
• For our International friends from other regions, please go to the The Salvation Army, International site
  

Recycle

Recycling turn objects – that might be considered waste – into new and useful products. The recycled material could also reproduce a fresh supply of the same material – ie. recycling used paper to produce new and clean (blank) paper

NoteBook using Recycled Paper from Qoo10 Singapore

Materials that can be recycled includes glass, paper, metal, textiles and some electronics products.

Do note that energy sources, ie. Petroleum, cannot be recycled. When they are burned, they produce heat waste.

Recycling consist of a 3 basic step loop :

1. Collection and Processing
2. Creating new products from recycled materials
3. Acquiring or purchasing the recycled products