3R’s Goes a Long Way!

3R’s …

Reduce.  Reuse.  Recycle.

You may have seen this before when it comes to things all around you in your everyday life.  Have you ever gotten tired of the bedroom, kitchen or dining set because you’ve thought … it’s looking a bit dated, old and just plain “tired?”  I know the feeling.  I recently had that same feeling about our dining set which we bought it when we first got married – that was almost 20 years ago!  Back then, white-washed (or pickled) finish was “in” at the time.  I didn’t want to just toss the old set (I actually didn’t want to spend over $3000 for a new set).  The style is fine, just the color was bothering me … so, over the next few weeks, I sanded it down, picked a dark espresso color stain and voila!  updated dining set.  As you can see, I Reduced my consumption, Reused something I already had and basically recycled a would-be destined perfectly good dining set to the landfill.

It was much easier than I thought it was going to be.

So, the next time you’re looking to buy something, give it the 3R Test and ask yourself … is there a way that I can reduce my consumption of “it,” can I reuse it in another way … if not, how can I recycle it?  At all cost (at the very least), re-purposing it is much better than simple trashing it and sending it to the landfill.