Since I started my career as an accountant in a huge company, I couldn't help but notice the incredible volume of paper that gets used every day. Often print jobs left on the printer will just be put in the recycle bin and the owner will simply print again, or people print a whole file for just a few pages. Also, our work provides us with a variety of drinks including bottled water. I've noticed that almost everyone takes a new bottle of water rather than using the filtered water tap to refil and reuse their bottle. Even better would be to use the glasses provided and fill them with the filtered water. So I've tried leading by example and spreading the word that reducing comes before recycling...
Reduce, Reuse... Then Recycle. A friend of mine reminded me this week that there are two other R's other than Recycle. Often times, the majority of us can pat ourselves on the back on how much we recycle our containers and cans, but why not take it a step further?
So I hosted a local show this past Saturday where I provided food and bottled water for the bands. At the end of the night, when we were cleaning up, I couldn't believe the amount of water that was left over! I mean, a lot of people don't usually think about it (including me before Saturday), but at huge events, concerts, sporting events... imagine how many bottles of water a person goes through. And imagine how many of them are only partially finished by the end of the event!