Introduction

When I moved out of my college apartment this year, I realized just how much junk I had. Looking at the boxes full of stuff I didn't even want anymore, I resolved to follow the 5 environmental Rs more thoroughly. You've most likely heard of them as a triplet: reduce, reuse, recycle. However, I prefer to add two more: refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle.

Note the order: earlier Rs generally yield greater impact, so you should consider them first.

Step 0: refuse

You can entirely eliminate the impact of your consumption by simply NOT consuming. Do you, for example, really need new clothes? Really need new shoes? Really need a new phone?

I find it helps to let items sit in cart for at least a few hours to see if I actually want them that much. Quite a few times this has saved me from buying more junk.

Step 1: reduce

Reduction especially applies to energy. You know the gist: consider energy-efficient devices, and turn off devices not in use.

To make it easier for myself, I use smart plugs for groups of power-hungry devices. My entire sound system will get automatically powered off every day at 4:20 AM in case I forget (which I often do).

Step 2: reuse

If you do not already, though you probably do, consider using cloth towels many times instead of one-off paper towels. On a broader level, I want to emphasize purchasing higher-quality goods that you can use more times for longer. Take caution not to mistake expense or fashion for quality.

Step 3: repurpose

No, I don't mean those ridiculous, impractical “life hacks” you see on YouTube. In practical terms, you can repurpose part or all of the product for a very similar use case when the original use case no longer matters. Most commonly, you see this in packaging. For example, you can use a glass tomato sauce jar to hold any liquid, or solid if you want to live adventurously.

Step 4: recycle

I really want to hammer home that recycling should constitute your last resort:

Recycling should constitute your last resort.

The gains from recycling (i.e. the energy and resources saved by producing with recycled materials instead of from scratch) pale in comparison to any of the previous steps. Even worse, sometimes “recycled” items just end up dumped in landfills. Even if the items get recycled, some materials just don't lend themselves to additional use. You can melt glass and reshape it. However, you can only really shred plastic, and shredded plastic serves little use. So little use, in fact, countries previously accepting have started to reject plastic recycling. Effectively, recycling plastic often means nothing.

Conclusion

You probably already know these things. You probably already know you should do them, and you probably already do some version of them. I just wanted to remind myself and you.