How Do Your Habits Affect Our Environment?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, we have grown up hearing this over and over in our life. What do these words really mean? What impact can we have on the health of the earth?
Reduce
This is a fairly straightforward concept, but hard to really put into true use. If you want to buy something, whether it's food to put on your table, cleaning products, clothing or other consumer products, it will come in some sort of packaging. How often do you think about how much or what type of packaging your consumer goods arrive in? You can choose to purchase items wrapped in paper, glass and cardboard rather than plastics and styrofoam to help reduce the amount of trash that ends up in the landfills - and you can choose packaging that will breakdown quicker versus those that will be around for hundreds of years. And, now you can even choose plastics made from corn or sugar, although I've not done the research percentages and such that may determine whether these are much better. But, we know we can do better, and we need to strive to support these new packaging options.
ASC Soapworks takes all this into consideration and we do our best to balance our ideologies with health and safety concerns surrounding the product. No packaging is obviously the best, and many of our soaps are sold "naked". Minimally wrapping other soaps, with a simple piece of paper, allows for variety identification and inclusion of ingredients, while being safe in the knowledge that the paper will disintegrate fairly quickly once released into the environment. Glass would be ideal over plastics, however, might not be safest if used in the shower. So, then we may use plastic, striving for USA origination, preferably made with some percentage of post consumer materials. Buying as local as possible is also a factor, to help reduce the amount of energy needed to get the product to our doors.
Reuse
If packaging can be reused, by all means do it! In our business, we reuse shipping boxes and packing whenever possible. In our personal lives, we also try to reuse as much as possible, balancing this with keeping the household clutter down - because I could save just about everything if I went unchecked. Grocery bags are one thing that is easy to reuse once you incorporate the habit into your life. ASC Soapworks will refill jars for you when you purchase liquid soaps or other products that fit this platform What can you reuse in your life? If you reuse, you reduce the energy to remake the item, saves you the expense of purchasing it and keeps the item from the landfill (at least for the present).
Recycle
This is a hard one, as we all know that even though we put those cartons and cans into the recycle bin, these days they are really going to the landfill. However, we continue to evolve the thinking on recycling. Can you somehow use the materials and repurpose them into something new? I'm astounded by the creativity of people and how they can utilize various materials to make art or build amazing things. Also, most towns have some sort of business that will buy scrap metal and such, or my favorite in the area here is Resource and/or Restore, which I frequent often for both donating and purchasing.
So many other things to take into consideration - can you walk to the post office? Grocery? Take the stairs instead of the elevator? Save gas and/or electricity and get some exercise in at the same time! Healthier choices for a better, more sustainable life!
Taralyn
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, we have grown up hearing this over and over in our life. What do these words really mean? What impact can we have on the health of the earth?
Reduce
This is a fairly straightforward concept, but hard to really put into true use. If you want to buy something, whether it's food to put on your table, cleaning products, clothing or other consumer products, it will come in some sort of packaging. How often do you think about how much or what type of packaging your consumer goods arrive in? You can choose to purchase items wrapped in paper, glass and cardboard rather than plastics and styrofoam to help reduce the amount of trash that ends up in the landfills - and you can choose packaging that will breakdown quicker versus those that will be around for hundreds of years. And, now you can even choose plastics made from corn or sugar, although I've not done the research percentages and such that may determine whether these are much better. But, we know we can do better, and we need to strive to support these new packaging options.
ASC Soapworks takes all this into consideration and we do our best to balance our ideologies with health and safety concerns surrounding the product. No packaging is obviously the best, and many of our soaps are sold "naked". Minimally wrapping other soaps, with a simple piece of paper, allows for variety identification and inclusion of ingredients, while being safe in the knowledge that the paper will disintegrate fairly quickly once released into the environment. Glass would be ideal over plastics, however, might not be safest if used in the shower. So, then we may use plastic, striving for USA origination, preferably made with some percentage of post consumer materials. Buying as local as possible is also a factor, to help reduce the amount of energy needed to get the product to our doors.
Reuse
If packaging can be reused, by all means do it! In our business, we reuse shipping boxes and packing whenever possible. In our personal lives, we also try to reuse as much as possible, balancing this with keeping the household clutter down - because I could save just about everything if I went unchecked. Grocery bags are one thing that is easy to reuse once you incorporate the habit into your life. ASC Soapworks will refill jars for you when you purchase liquid soaps or other products that fit this platform What can you reuse in your life? If you reuse, you reduce the energy to remake the item, saves you the expense of purchasing it and keeps the item from the landfill (at least for the present).
Recycle
This is a hard one, as we all know that even though we put those cartons and cans into the recycle bin, these days they are really going to the landfill. However, we continue to evolve the thinking on recycling. Can you somehow use the materials and repurpose them into something new? I'm astounded by the creativity of people and how they can utilize various materials to make art or build amazing things. Also, most towns have some sort of business that will buy scrap metal and such, or my favorite in the area here is Resource and/or Restore, which I frequent often for both donating and purchasing.
So many other things to take into consideration - can you walk to the post office? Grocery? Take the stairs instead of the elevator? Save gas and/or electricity and get some exercise in at the same time! Healthier choices for a better, more sustainable life!
Taralyn
