When it comes to saving the planet, many people focus on the “three r’s:” Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
I also focus on all three of these things. I try to reduce the amount of stuff that I purchase, reuse things until their useful life has run out, and recycle whenever possible. As a personal finance writer, I realize that reducing and reusing are the most important out of the three r’s to help save money.
I also realize that recycling is good, but it doesn’t help us to save money and it isn’t enough to save our planet.
How Recycling Works
Ever since elementary school, most of us have been trained to put our paper products in one bin and our metal, glass, and plastic products in the other. We then bring these bins out to the curb and smile to ourselves because we are helping to save the environment.
But are we?
Well . . . kind of.
Recycling and China
Recycling is a business and, like any business, it typically must be profitable to run. For decades, much of the recycling waste from the United States and other developed countries was sent to China, where it could be processed and turned into new products. However, over the past several years, China has stopped accepting most of the recycling from developed countries.
Which brings us to the financial aspects of recycling.
Ever since China has stopped accepting recycling, many municipalities have found that it is cheaper to put recycled materials in a landfill or to burn them. This means that materials we try to recycle may actually end up in the landfill right next to the trash that we throw away.
How we should recycle
If our recycling could end up being put in the landfill anyways, does it even make sense to continue to recycle?
Of course, the answer to this is a resounding YES! However, it get a little more complicated than just tossing everything into the recycling bin and hoping that it’s recyclable.
The biggest thing to remember when recycling is that recyclables must be clean before they can be recycled.
This just means that we have to do things like rinse plastic containers out and avoid recycling pizza boxes that are contaminated by pizza grease. We also have to avoid trying to recycle plastic bags. These can end up getting caught in the machinery at a recycling facility and shutting the machine down. For a more in-depth look on what cannot be recycled, just check out this article.
Recycling is not enough
We definitely should keep recycling plastic milk containers, aluminum cans, newspaper, and other commonly recycled items. But . . . we should also realize that recycling is not enough.
It doesn’t completely eliminate waste since many of the things that we recycle can only be recycled once. It also doesn’t help us financially, since we still have to purchase the original items.
Instead of just recycling, we also have to do the other two r’s . . .
Reduce
When thinking about money, “reduce” is an easy thing to promote.
Simply buying less stuff will cause us to save more money.
Instead of buying plastic, disposal water bottles, we can drink water from the tap if our water is safe or drink it from a filter if it is not. Instead of getting our kids plastic, throwaway toys, we can buy toys that are longer lasting or we can purchase a college fund or an experience as a gift.
When we reduce the amount of stuff that we buy, we will automatically save money. This will allow us to “purchase” things like happiness and financial freedom in place of our stuff. It will also help to save the environment.
Reuse
Another thing that will help our money grow is reusing as much as we can. This can be as simple as reusing new things that we purchase, over and over again until their usefulness is gone. Or we can even focus on purchasing things secondhand that still have a lot of use in them.
In the United States and other developed countries, the used market in very strong. New items are fairly cheap and often seen as disposable by many people. This means that we can purchase used clothes that have only been worn once or used toys that have never been played with.
My family gets a lot of value from always purchasing used cars. We have also been able to purchase secondhand toys, clothes, electronics, and even furniture.
Not only does reusing save us money, but it is also better for the environment.
Keep recycling
Let’s make sure that we keep recycling when we can. But let’s also remember that recycling is not enough. To save the planet, as well as a lot of money, we should also make sure to focus on reducing the amount of things that we buy and reusing the things that we have.
Share with us how you reduce, reuse, and recycle in the comments below.
And thanks for reading!
~Nathan
Let’s keep living a great life . . . with the help of money. So what’s next?
- You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
- You can get motivated and get out of debt.
- You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.
But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!
