Simple Living–Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Not only is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle an important component for simple living it is an important component for living lightly on the earth. It brings a sense of accomplishment and well-being, that with this simple concept we can lessen our impact on mother earth. The footprint we leave behind will effect future generations of all creatures who will share this beautiful world, two legged, four legged, multi legged, furred and feathered.

Reduce Reuse, Recycle, or the three R’s importance to low impact simple living cannot be overstated, and their practice should be the staple of everyone’s existence and survival as well. If each one of us would practice these simple concepts in every aspect of our daily lives, we could slowly begin to reverse the damages we have done to our earth mother and her environment.

If you research the three R’s, you will find them listed in different orders. I have listed them here in what I believe is their most important order in regards to living lightly on the earth. Many believe recycle is the most important of the three, while it is the easiest; it is the least important of the three in lessening our impact on mother earth.

Reduce is without a doubt the most important of the three. We are a society of consumers and takers. We consume with a blind abandon with little or no regard to our impact or the footprint we leave behind. While it is true that we are a world of vast resources, we are not a world of unlimited resources. Therefore, we must act responsibly and consume only what we need, put back what we do not need and lose the notion of taking just for the sake of taking. Only then can we truly begin to live the simple life.

Reuse the second most important of the three. Every day we throw something away that still had a useful purpose and another life. Everyday our landfills and garbage dumps fill with items that should not be there. These items not only impact our limited landfill capacities and resources they also pollute and poison our precious mother earth. If we cannot reduce our consumption then we must learn to reuse what we can and relieve some of the stresses that we impose on the environment.

Recycle while it is important to recycle, it in and of it self has a huge impact on our environment. While recycling may be better than filling our landfills the process of recycling generates vast amounts of industrial pollution. By using harmful chemicals energy and transportation, recycling is only a band-aid or temporary solution. If we learn to reduce or reuse we lessen the need to recycle.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will be sharing ideas for low impact simple living through Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Add us to your favorites or subscribe to our RSS feed and join us on our quest to do the right thing, Live Lightly on the Earth.