Dec 8, 2010
By New England Design and Construction

Couple nights ago when I got home from a friend’s house for dinner. I noticed he doesn’t actually recycle at all… period….

When I asked him why, he said it was way too complicated and so many things he didn’t know how to do or how to separate. IE in my mind ” OR JUST PLAIN LAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZYYYYYY”

Indeed, there are so many different way you can separate trash, but every single step counts.

The basics of recycling or doing any kind of Green activity is to Reuse and Reduce.

Reduce– Make sure when using electricity things are shut off and that you’re not leaving lights in rooms not being used. But, besides reducing energy there’s also water. Be aware of how much you’re actually using.

For example. When my friend was washing vegetables, he just left the water on and went to turn on the T.V….First of all the T.V. wasn’t even watchable from where his kitchen was and then he’s leaving water on? Just be aware of the things you do. You may think whats 20 seconds of me leaving on water going to do in the world? But think about it, if millions of others have the same attitude and we all do this and repeat it over and over again… the world together ends up wasting so much than we should.

Check out our article on Energy Saving- Formulating A Plan for tips how to reduce energy in your own home.

Reuse– Prolong the usage of any or all products you use. Try and be creative with what you have. Seriously take a step back and look at what you have and see what you can do. Here’s some quick

random ways off the top of my head to generate some ideas

1. Reuse plastic water bottles and use them as small decorative vases. Use some construction paper and cover it if you wish to do your own designs on it. What works even better are glass bottled drinks like Sobe and Snapple. Pretty much any glass bottles left over from cooking can be handy vases too

• Reuse plastic bags as much as possible and you could even fuse them or tie them together and make like a large bag out of them and store clothes inside. Good substitution to large heavy plastic bins.I
• Egg Carton
• I Saw something similar at my mother’s house, it may look weird and different from fancy wooden jewelry boxes but this gets the job done. You could also cut it in halves and use it as some sort of protection for objects. I’ve also seen people cut them up and design them into marble holders and paper weights
• 

Its basically like grouping things together. For paper you want to separate it into types such as cardboard,newspaper, printing paper and things like that. For glass a handy tip is to separate them by colors. Recycling centers have an easier time by reusing them by colors but most will just take mixes and melt it down.For Bottles, remover lids from everything. And lids are generally made from different materials and its just better to group everything.

One thing to be concerned about is recycling hazardous materials because if they end up in landfills, things like battery acid can leak. Most local auto parts will recycle old car batteries, antifreeze, and check hardware stores for recycling light bulbs. Or make your own light bulb ornaments.

You can check www.earth911.org for ways for more specific ways to recycle hazardous objects and other materials.

Another tip, Instead of throwing old fruit and vegetable scraps, if you are a home garden enthusiast, throw them in a compost bin so you can use as fertilizer for planting season.

Remember there’s so much you can do with old materials, there are endless possibilities to what you can do with old objects and such. To prolong the life of objects and materials, why not donate some things to non-profit and old electronics? Why not sell them on ebay or amazon? There has to be someone who want’s your trash.

You can always read our past articles at nedb.jasonridesabike.com/blog/ and drop us a comment =D

If you want any help with some interior design or have any kind of question feel free to contact us at

info@nedesignbuild.com