The idea of "reduce, reuse, recycle" isn't necessarily a new vision of practice. It indeed was once a practical way of daily life that over the years may have been overlooked as we have evolved into more of a consumption driven society. Susan Strasser's Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash outlines the pragmatic ethic of stewardship in domestic households where women practiced the recycling of rags, the making of quilts and other re-use of materials as a part of housekeeping. These insights can bridge the historical gap by showing students where we were and where we are headed.
Reducing unnecessary product purchases is one way to reduce the consumption of resources. Another way to use fewer total resources is to purchase products that can be used many times. Recycling can change our buying habits and save precious resources and energy. Remember that what happens to a product before we obtain it and after we use it helps determine the product's cost and its impact on our environment. Our consumer decisions determine what wastes are produced and how they are returned to the air, water, and land. Is everything we throw away really garbage? This consumption of natural resources could remain plentiful if recycled. Of the eighty percent of iron and steel that is consumed, only fifty-five percent is being recycled. An average American consumes eighty times more paper than the average Indian and consumes two hundred, forty times as much gasoline. This, then, contributes to carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Although consumption of natural resources often converts to human capital, the question remains as to whether consumption merely uses the resources or in fact uses them up. (Myers and Kent, 2004, 1-7) In an effort to keep natural resources like trees from being used one can make their own recycled paper.
