November 15 is America Recycles Day

While we should ALL recycle each and every day, this Sunday, November 15th is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle AND buy recycled products.

I’m sure you have heard of the term REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE. But in the hustle and bustle of your life, have you thought HARD about what those words REALLY mean? To explain this concept, I’ll use paper – a commonly recycled product – as an example.

Reduce – this means reduce the amount you consume. For example, if you email your weekly staff meeting agenda, do you REALLY need to print out 10 extra copies for staffers who MAY have forgotten to print out their own version? Ask them to bring their own copy because there WON’T be extras, or better yet, have them load the agenda to their laptop and bring THAT to the meeting.

Reuse – if you printed out those agendas and there are extras with a blank side and no critical information on the printed side, reuse them by putting them back in your printer. Here at lori hill event productions, we can safely say that we try to minimize the use of our printer, but when we do print, close to 99% of the paper we print out is for office use only. Accordingly, we only place re-used paper in our printer. IF we need to print out on clean, unused paper, we only use 100% recycled paper.

Recycle – so you reduced the number of agendas you printed out and reused the extras by placing them in your printer. The final step is to take any paper that can’t be re-used and recycle it! Never EVER put anything in the trash (which goes to the landfill) if it can be recycled into something else. The landfill should ALWAYS be your last option. Unfortunately, it is the first option for too many. If there isn’t a paper recycling program in your office building, START ONE!

To find out more about American Recycles Day, click HERE to visit the site which includes lots of helpful information including recycling 101.

Have an object that you don’t know how to recycle? Visit one of my favorite web sites: Earth911.com. Just enter the item you are looking to recycle and the zip code of where you live or work and it will tell you where you can recycle. I will admit that sometimes I have not gotten any results for odd items (those evil petroleum-based candles), but just the other day, I directed my sister in Pennsylvania to a laundry list of places where she could recycle an old iron.

Remember, before you EVER throw ANYTHING into the landfill, always try to recycle it. The generations that come after us will be grateful.