The three R's - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
It's important to understand that there's a specific order to the 3 R's - reduce, reuse, recycle. Recently recycling has become co-opted away from the first two steps and brought into the mainstream, however it is actually the least important and least effective approach to reducing your impact.
1: Reducing our consumption is the most important as it directly and immediately reduces our impact on the planet as we are using less resources. It's essential to reduce our consumption because the life-cycle impacts of our product choices go far beyond what we see and experience - for example, a typical food product involves as much as 2500 times its own weight in materials and water to create it.
2: Reusing the resources which have already been taken from the planet, will directly affect the amount of resources taken from the earth and the energy used to create new products.
3: Recycling is the least effective because, although you're not taking new resources from the earth, you're using energy to recycle the resources into new products - usually fossil fuels, and often the recycling plant is some distance away and the new consumers a further distance - more fossil fuels!
1: Reducing our consumption is the most important as it directly and immediately reduces our impact on the planet as we are using less resources. It's essential to reduce our consumption because the life-cycle impacts of our product choices go far beyond what we see and experience - for example, a typical food product involves as much as 2500 times its own weight in materials and water to create it.
2: Reusing the resources which have already been taken from the planet, will directly affect the amount of resources taken from the earth and the energy used to create new products.
3: Recycling is the least effective because, although you're not taking new resources from the earth, you're using energy to recycle the resources into new products - usually fossil fuels, and often the recycling plant is some distance away and the new consumers a further distance - more fossil fuels!
Applying the 3 R's to buildings: The building itself
1: Reduce the amount of space you need, thus the amount of materials and operating impacts using whole-building design.
2: Reuse buildings and materials that already exist rather than building new
3:Use recycled material for any building, renovations and recycle all waste
Operating the building
1: Reduce water, energy consumption (through increased efficiency, insulation, and personal generation) and waste through the Green Home Kit!
2: Reuse gray water, furniture, products, free-cycle, donate!
3: Recycle anything possible!
2: Reuse buildings and materials that already exist rather than building new
3:Use recycled material for any building, renovations and recycle all waste
Operating the building
1: Reduce water, energy consumption (through increased efficiency, insulation, and personal generation) and waste through the Green Home Kit!
2: Reuse gray water, furniture, products, free-cycle, donate!
3: Recycle anything possible!
