• REUSE stuff.  This is easy.  Simply Rethink everything we see in stores.  Especially grocery stores - anything that is a single use, must be avoided. 
  
• Here's my favorite example: A shampoo bottle.  If you have an opportunity to RE-fill your shampoo bottle at your local hairdresser or health food store you must do it.  Really.
  
• This plastic bottle can be refilled for years and years and save dozens and dozens of containers from being manufactured!  Imagine what would happen if we all did just this one act alone! imagine how much plastic would no longer re-melted (less chemicals in our air!), re-formed and re-distributed. 
  
• And by the way... how much fuel is used to transport the average plastic shampoo bottle?  We bring it home.  We, or a curbside recycling firm, take it to a recycling center.  Then it travels to a place to be shredded (using energy) and might even then be sold as raw stock and be shipped again to a bottle manufacturer (using energy to form new bottles).  It's not over yet!  Next (are you starting to see how bizarre recycling can be?) it has to go the brand plant to get filled with shampoo again.  Not done yet!  Gotta ship it to the stores.  Wow!
  
• Just think.  By RETHINKING we can stop being a part of all that carbon waste.  Make a list of things you can refill or reuse.  Start rethinking what other containers can be RE-used. We can make a difference when we get off the recycling merry-go-round.

• This step is the lowest priority in the bid to be a better participant in mending our planet.  The more time we spend doing the First and Second stages of this triad, the less we even need to recycle.
• Let's STOP recycling things we didn't need in the first place.  If you buy bottled water for your staff or clients (or your home!) and that plastic goes into a recycling bin at the end of a single use, you must rethink if "recycling" is doing anyone any good at all.  If you can't come up with an alternative in your situation to bottled water or styrofoam cups, please email me.  Let's put our heads together.  
  

Consider This!
Everything we purchase,
every dollar we spend,
is an investment in something. 

If we buy crappy, cheaply constructed "throw-away" furniture made of particle board - we are buying space in a landfill in the not too distant future.