For decades we have been told of the 3 r’s concerning waste. but there is a 4th that is even more important.

First we need to re-think. Put consideration into every purchase and think about the entire life span of that item.

As a person who was always  very committed to recycling it became too easy to think I was doing less harm to the environment than I was. But the creation of plastic in the first place is very harmful, and now it turns out that recycling isn’t quite what many of us thought all these years. Even before China started refusing our refuse the process was not very clean or happening as much as we thought. Sometimes our ‘recycling’ was traveling this world to other countries and simply being burned. But that is not really my point.

Plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, metal, wood, bamboo, vinyl. Think of all the source material whatever you are using comes from, and how it is processed. How does it start, what happens as it becomes the item you use, and what happens to it when you are done using it?

Cork is one of my favorites. Cork is harvested from the bark of the cork oak without harming the tree. It absorbs carbon, it can be recycled into other items and is very low impact to be put to use in the first place.

Re-thinking what we buy and use is a subject I plan to get into often here. I hope it will lead to conversations, suggestions and additional awareness for us all. I encourage feedback and comments to further the conversation.