10 Ways to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Earth Day Every Day

In honor of Earth Day, I thought I’d throw together a post of various ways I try to be green throughout the year. I’m not going to throw any hard facts at you about how many square miles of rain forests being destroying every year or how much landfill space plastic water bottles take up, because, honestly, reading that stuff makes me a queasy. Instead, I’m just going to share with you some of the little things I do in this household to do what I can to REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE every single day.

1. REUSE yogurt cups as bathroom cups. OMG, they’re the perfect size! This genius idea came from my dear mom who had been collecting the yogurt cups from our visits. One day, they just magically appeared. What a great idea! I’m totally copying! 🙂 I never liked the girls eating the Yoplait Trix yogurts, but once they turned “No High Fructose Corn Syrup, No Artificial Flavors or Coloring”, I changed my tune. The girls use these cups while the hubby and I just use our hands. We usually switch to paper cups, though, when visitors come and when there’s sickness abound in the house. Even though we hand wash them super well in as water as hot as it gets, I just feel like we should. 🙂 But even with that, I can’t imagine how much we’ve saved by not buying Dixie cups over the years.

2. Baby wash cloths. When the girls were just babies, we managed to amass quite a few of these baby wash cloths, but we seriously used them like ALL THE TIME! Now we keep a drawerful in the bathroom to for the girls to use to wipe up faces (first) then feet before bedtime. The rest of them are kept in a kitchen drawer for the girls to dampen with water and use as napkins at meal times. It’s great because they really do a fabulous job cleaning up those messy fingers and faces – much better than napkins could ever do. And now that the girls are older, one of their “family contributions” is to set the table and set out wet washcloths. We’ve saved a BUNDLE in paper and money, by using these instead of paper napkins… maybe even a whole tree’s worth! 🙂

Update 4/22/16: And here’s a handy way of storing and dispensing them. They are right next to our kitchen table where we eat almost exclusively. But even then, I will occasionally here, “Mommy, can you get me a wash cloth?” when the girls are sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. In their defense, it’s often because their hands are already in some sticky situation and they need to bet wet. But c’mon! 😉

3. Re-purpose cereal boxes et al to use as drawer organizers. This was actually one of the first projects (and maybe only? haha) that I undertook when by youngest went off to Kindergarten. My drawers were in serious need of organization and after looking around a bit for those plastic drawer organizers that never quite come in the perfect size, I happened upon this Pinterest post and off I went. Just look how awesome these turned out and I utilized every inch of that drawer. Not only did I avoid buying more plasticy stuff, I also saved a bundle of money because those plastic drawer organizers ain’t cheap!! Here’s the link on how to do it yourself: Do-It-Yourself Drawer Organizers Using Cereal Boxes

4. My EasyLunchBoxes, LunchBots and Thermos re-usable containers get used A LOT! These are my go-to lunch-transporting gear and RARELY do I use any plastic baggies, paper bags, plastic utensils or even disposable water bottles to pack lunch. Just LOVE LOVE LOVE my lunch packing buddies. Couldn’t imagine life w/o ’em! 🙂

5. Reusable BPA Plastic Water Bottles. My parents bought us two sets a couple years ago. It takes extra work to clean and fill them, but I KNOW I’ve done my part in trying to REDUCE the use of plastics, especially when it comes to those single-use water bottles. They are too convenient and sometimes you can’t avoid but using them, but I CRINGE every time I see one, which is all the time. I’m grateful that they are at least recyclable. At least companies have made them a little better by making bottles thinner and caps smaller, but I still can’t help but despise them. I keep four of these reusable bottles filled in my fridge and use them least 10 times a week. Though, I hate washing and refilling them with my ridiculously slow fridge water dispenser, I persevere! 😉

Update: 4/22/16 – I’ve since added these to my collection as well. Glass water bottles from Lifefactory! They aren’t as delicate as you may think, but I have broken/chipped a few here and there. Just the same, I LOVE these bottles and it’s what the girls take to bed at night, every night.

6. Call me frugal (so much nicer that saying cheap! haha) or call me waste conscious, but I started doing this years ago when the foam pump soaps first came out. I quickly realized refills were just watered down hand soap gel, so instead of buying the foam refills, I just bought the hand gel refills, watered it down and used it to refill my foaming soap dispensers. I even use emptied, washed V8 Fusion juice bottles to pre-water down batches at a time and store those under each sink in my house. That’s not only saving lots of money but packaging too, that doesn’t seem to be easily recyclable! (I sense a theme here… save money and the environment by being green!). Check out my post for more deets: How to save on foaming hand soap refills

7. Cans and boxes make for great craft projects with kids. Take for instance these pencil cans. So easy to make, girls loved picking out their own styles of paper I already had on hand, and we were able to organize to boot without having to go out and buy them. Yay!

8. When I first joined Pinterest, I was obsessed with pinning “upcycling” projects. Though I haven’t tackled many of them, I have done a few. How cool is it to make something that was once old new again and give it new life?! I’ve been pretty happy with the few I did try and still have a PILE of clothes squirreled away in my closet for future use even after going through a bunch to donate. Here’s a sample of one of my upcycling projects: a shrug for Big Sis for a Daddy-Daughter Dance last summer thanks to Embroitique’s Cool Tutorial on Easy Peasy Ruched Upcycled T-shirt Shrug Come check and even follow my Pinterest Board (Sewing for Me) to get more cool ideas!

9. Kids’ clothes exchanges. Between friends and family, I am always getting and giving bags and bags of clothing for the girls. What was once old for one girl is now new for another! In the past 6 months, I’ve gone through 10+ trash bags full of clothes from family and friends. Now, I’m getting ready to pay if forward. Here are 4 bags that I have ready to go to friends. Not shown are the 6+ bags that went to out for donation. Saves me gobs of money spent on clothing and boy, do we get some good stuff! REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!

10. Reusable shopping bags. I’ve been using them for as long as I can remember, before all the really cute bags you see today. Not that long ago, people would give me strange looks when I say I didn’t need a bag. Sometimes people would get downright ornery about it, but I stuck to my guns. These days, they’re much easier to use for any kind of shopping that requires putting stuff in a bag. I had many that were starting to wear and fray from over-use but then I’d just patch ’em back up. I called them my Franken-Bags. Check out some of my cool bags now!

One last thing, as simple as it is, is just RECYCLE, whatever I can! I love my town. We have curbside recycling and and I’m amazed and thrilled at all the stuff they pick up. And the stuff they don’t pick up (like batteries, cooking oil – yes i’ve recycled cooking oil!, computer parts and other eletroncis, etc) can be taken to the nearest Recycling Convenience Center or scheduled for special pick-up. So be sure to check on your city/town’s recycling page (usually found under the Department of Public Works and Utilities) to see what new things they accept curbside.

Here in my town, we get 65-gallon recycling carts that get picked up curbside, once every two weeks. I quickly realized that our bin was filling up way too quickly, way faster than our trash can and I was delighted to find that I could exchange my cart for a 95-gallon cart, free of charge, so that’s what I did! For those of who who live here in Cary, NC and wish to do the same, here’s the link to the Public Works and Utility page to get ‘er done: Town of Cary Dept of Public Works and Utilitlies – Recycling Carts.

We can all make a difference, just by making little changes in our every day lives, and an even bigger one if we all work together! So please REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE as often as you can. And involve your kids, like Little Sis made me do 2 years ago: Earth Day 2011: Little Sis Trash Pick Up. Haha!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Feel free to make my day by leaving me a comment, following my blog via email, on Facebook or on Instagram. The more the merrier!

Christine, aka happyvballgirl 🙂

Check out some of the items used in this post. Visit the “Products I Love” page to see a full list of my favorite bento gear and such. Any purchases made through these links earns me a little extra cash to support my bento habit. My hubby would really appreciate it. Haha! So, THANK YOU, should you choose to purchase any of ’em!

Lunch Box Paraphernalia: