Tag Archives: Recycling

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Slow and Frugal: A Teen’s 10 Tips for Recycling and Reuse


Many of us are trying to do our part to help the planet. In our family we’ve seen that thoughtful consumption, use and reuse can also help us lead slower, less expensive, more purposeful, and more family-centered lives.

The biggest influence on my relatively green habits has been my daughter, Anna. From a young age, she showed great concern about our environment and the world she would inhabit.

Plastic waste in the oceans and in our landfills upset her so much that she embarked on a lifestyle of extremely limited consumption of plastic, oil, paper, water and other non-local or non-sustainable goods, which she has followed for about the last eight of her 17 years. She bikes to school and errands.

She buys little and often reuses or upcycles clothing and other items, by embellishing them or piecing them together to create new items.  She uses reusable bags, water and food containers, and water-bottle holsters, like these:


Dovetailing with Anna’s desire to use less is a desire to spend less. She sees these two practices as intertwined. Saving resources results in financial savings, and vice versa. Both also result in time savings, and the ability to spend precious time engaged in fun hobbies and with friends, rather than shopping and consuming.

Through Anna I’ve learned that, as conscious as many of us try to be, there is much work to be done, if we really want to change our habits and be thoughtful consumers and good stewards of the Earth. She recently sat down with me to offer her top ten suggestions for reuse, using less, and ultimately saving money, while conserving natural resources.

1. Bring your own shopping bag, instead of using plastic

“Only buy as much as you can carry.”

2. Bring your own utensils

“Camping sets are very inexpensive at army surplus stores.”

3. Turn off faucets and lights when they’re not in use

4. Don’t spend money just because you can

“You will end up wasting money. Focus on what you really need. Put yourself on a budget. Sometimes you have to decide whether you want one large thing or multiple smaller things.”

5. Try to go to local stores and buy local goods

“This eliminates imports and the transportation they require.”

6. Bike or walk instead of driving

7. Get out in nature

“This will immediately make you want to recycle and help our environment because you’ll appreciate where you are.”

8. Use your local library

9. Buy second-hand clothes and upcycle them

and the most important thing you can do:

10. Stop buying plastic bottles


Americans purchase 29 billion plastic bottles of water each year. This takes 17 million barrels of crude oil to make, enough fuel to keep one million vehicles on the road for a year. The energy used to pump, process, transport and refrigerate bottled water takes an additional 50 million barrels of oil each year.

The creation and transportation of plastic causes much of the world’s pollution. Bottles in the landfill take centuries to decompose and many end up on our beautiful shores and in our oceans. It’s easy to see why limiting plastic consumption figured in three of Anna’s ten recommendations.

It’s been humbling and refreshing to be enlightened by my own daughter and to watch her grow into a thoughtful and resourceful young person. I’m delighted to think that there are many more like Anna who are conscientious consumers and educators. Her tips can easily be put into practice by anyone who wants to make small changes that will have large ripple effects on their lives and the life of the planet.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman and Poor Planet

This post originally appeared in Frugal Mama.

What Our Kids Can Teach Us About Recycling

Many of us are trying to do our part to help the planet. In our family we’ve seen that thoughtful consumption, use and reuse can also help us lead slower, less expensive, more purposeful, and more family-centered lives.

The biggest influence on my relatively green habits has been my daughter, Anna. From a young age, she showed great concern about our environment and the world she would inhabit. Plastic waste in the oceans and in our landfills upset her so much that she embarked on a lifestyle of extremely limited consumption of plastic, oil, paper and other non-local or non-sustainable goods, which she has followed for about the last 8 of her 17 years. She bikes to school and errands. She buys little and often reuses or upcycles clothing and other items.  She uses reusable bags, water and food containers, and water-bottle holsters, like these:

Through Anna I’ve learned that, as conscious as many of us try to be, there is much work to be done, if we really want to be good stewards of the Earth. We can try to use less plastic in general. When we do use plastic, we can recycle it. 70% of plastic water bottles are not recycled. In California alone, more than 2.8 billion plastic bottles end up in landfills.

According to National Geographic, Americans purchase 29 billion plastic bottles of water each year, far outpacing other countries. This takes 17 million barrels of crude oil to make.

That is enough fuel to keep 1 million vehicles on the road for a year.

Oil is precious .. and limited. The energy used to pump, process, transport and refrigerate bottled water takes an additional 50 million barrels of oil each year. The creation and transportation of plastic causes much of the world’s pollution. Bottles in the landfill take centuries to decompose and many end up on our beautiful shores and in our oceans.

With this in mind, I was happy to learn about Arrowhead Water’s ReBorn bottle, which is made with 50% recycled plastic. Most plastic bottles are produced new and are not made with recycled plastic. ReBorn bottles use 50% recycled plastic, only because there isn’t enough quality recyclable plastic for them to use 100%.

This video conveys the beauty of recycling and sustainability.

Will you pledge with me to use less plastic overall, and to recycle when you do? If so, click “Like” underneath the video, and share this information with someone else.

This post was sponsored by Arrowhead. The views expressed are my own.

Images: Susan Sachs Lipman, Arrowhead, Poor Planet

From Treehugger: Frugal Green Living Posters

Canning, victory gardening, carpooling, conserving resources, living frugally — There are a lot of parallels between a whole swath of trends and activities today and those from the 1940s. In both periods, outside forces (war, the economy, the environment) have caused a lot of us to take stock and change some of our homefront habits. In the process, many of us discovered or rediscovered some relatively lost arts on the way to using less.

The always-relevant Treehugger has offered a terrific blog post, Frugal Green Living: Posters for the Movement, which features a collection of 1940s posters that, while making statements urging people to reconsider wasteful habits, are also themselves wonderful examples of message-oriented graphic design at its mid-century zenith.

I love these for their bold graphics and nostalgic style and marvel that they are fairly relevant today – except for the last one, of course. Though Treehugger makes the point that cooking fat is now collected for biodiesel fuel, rather than to make explosives. And that is undoubtedly a good thing.

Posters: Minneapolis Public Library

Flashy but Trashy Fashion Show and other ways to help the planet on Earth Day

Residents of the small Canadian town of Fernie, B.C., will mark this Thursday’s 40th anniversary of Earth Day with their 4th annual Flashy but Trashy Fashion Show. The show highlights people of all ages from the community who demonstrate their flair for creative re-use by modeling outfits made of such materials as biodegradable packing peanuts, coffee filters, flour sacs, and bubble wrap.

See a video from last year’s Flashy but Trashy show.

Displays of creative re-use are fun for both the participant and the viewer. Last year my daughter and her friends took part in a local Eco-Fashion show, at which they modeled their hand-made creations, all of which were made using re-purposed materials.

When Earth Day began in 1970, it heralded a new era of thinking about conservation of our land, air, water and other resources. At the U.S. government level, it sparked the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. On a personal level, many people began caring for the planet in a variety of ways they hadn’t before.

Take just one area: paper recycling. Between 1960 and 2006 paper and paperboard recycling rates have increased from 17% to more than 50%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which offers this information about how to reduce, re-use and recycle various materials.

Here are more recycling statistics from around the world.

Here is a map of Earth Day events around the world.

Last but not least, with a nod to the folks in Fernie, this is a picture of me in 1987, wearing a dress created from recycled play money and ready to hit the eco-town.

Video: Beyond Recycling, Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman, Los Angeles Times Magazine

Slow News Day: San Francisco Passes Ambitious Recycling & Sustainable Food Laws

Real_Compost2

San Franciscans, you could be forgiven if you’ve been out playing in our unusually beautiful weather and missed a couple of developments that contribute to San Francisco being one of the greenest cities in the country.

Late last month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced and signed the nation’s first mandatory composting law and what is probably its most comprehensive recycling law.

According to Mayor Newsom, San Francisco is already keeping 72 percent of recyclable material out of our landfill. The city has a Zero Waste goal.

The Huffington Post ran a very good piece on the program and the announcement.

The sfenvironment site is an excellent resource for information about the city’s green programs and ways you can be involved.

If that wasn’t enough, a few days ago, Mayor Newsom issued a multi-pronged Executive Directive that aims to get San Franciscans even closer to complete sustainability in the areas of producing and consuming local, nutritious food, and doing so in a way that limits the impact on the environment, while meeting the needs of the most vulnerable San Franciscans.

Mayor Newsom announced the Directive at Oakland’s non-profit City Slicker Farms, which itself was converted from a former junkyard. San Francisco’s plan calls for similar re-use of land.

The Civil Eats blog has this very thorough story.

Another piece on the Directive appears in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I’m sure lots of other cities are creating initiatives to promote greener, more sustainable practices. If you come across any Slow News in your city or town, please send it my way.

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