Did You Know These 5 Ways to Precycle?

Precycling is becoming a buzz word amongst greenies like us and the Our Everyday Earth family wanted to share the following top 5 ways to boost your eco-friendliness with some waste stopping precycling….

Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by attempting to avoid bringing into the home or business items which will generate waste.

The practice of precycling includes buying essentials and groceries in bulk to reduce packaging, buying products that use recyclable packaging over non-recyclable packages, reducing or eliminating junk mail, and using the internet for reading instead of buying books, newspapers and magazines etc.

Method Number 1: Eliminate Junk Mail!

As a household we receive a lot of junk mail, advertising leaflets, promotional newspapers, credit card applications etc. and it all has to be recycled or shredded. Our favorite site for reducing or eliminating junk mail is DMA Choice;

Eliminate Junk Mail Being Sent to Your Address

DMAchoice™ is an online tool developed by the Direct Marketing Association to help you manage your mail. The site started life as the DMA’s Mail Preference Service created in 1971 but the new website uses modern technology to automate elimination of junk mail being sent to your address.
The DMAchoice website categorizes mail into four categories:

• Credit Offers
• Catalogs
• Magazine Offers
• Other Mail Offers

Once you sign up on their website you can request to start or stop receiving mail from individual companies within each category, or from an entire category at once!

https://www.dmachoice.org

Method Number 2: Request E-Bills!

Many banks now offer online bill pay but many people still also get paper copies of their bills delivered by post. You can now request pure e-bills to eliminate the paper copies and it makes for a big reduction in paper waster. We now pay our gas, electric, phone, internet, water & waste and our pest control bills purely online through our banking website.

We found a great site which allows user to search to see if their bank offers online bill pay and/or e-bills, the website is eBill Place;

Sign Up for Ebills and Find Ebill Providers

The eBill Place website allows users to search their bill providers and see if eBills options are available;

http://www.ebillplace.com/cda/ebillplace/providers/providers.html

We also like the Pay It Green website which offers lots of advice and facts about paying using eBills, they have lots of interesting figures such as;

“In one year, by switching from paper to electronic billing, statements and payments, the average American household would save 6.6 pounds of paper!”

http://www.payitgreen.org/

Method Number 3: Reduce Household Clutter!

The reduction of household clutter involves several stages but they can be condensed down into two stages, the first stage is removing clutter from your home and the second stage is trying to remain clutter free! One of our favorite sites for hints and tips on how to de-clutter and remain clutter free is UnClutterer. The site has a wealth of advice including some more intense methods like the “Extreme Minimalism Mondays!”;

Reduce Your Household Clutter With UnClutterer!

http://unclutterer.com/

Method Number 4: Buy a Book Reader or Read Books Online

The last few years have seen a vast improvement in electronic book reading technology and gadgets, if you own an electronic book reader then you are probably familiar with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Nobles Nook, here are some great reviews of both;

Amazons Kindle Electronic Book Reader

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/amazon-kindle-2-review/

The Barnes and Noble "Nook" Electronic Book Reader

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/07/barnes-and-noble-nook-review/

Method Number 5: Always Use Canvas Shopping Totes Instead of Plastic or Paper Bags

Many of the large grocery stores now sell canvas shopping totes which can be used to carry your groceries and are good for hundreds of visits the grocery store. I usually shop at our local Tom Thumb grocery store and I have about 10 of their canvas shopping totes which I keep in my truck for my weekly shopping trips. I found out last week that Target actually gives its shoppers 5 cents off your grocery bill for each reuasable shopping tote used! Most stores sell their own brand canvas totes for approx 99c each which is a small investment for the reduction in plastic bags used.

On average, each reusable bag keeps 2.5 plastic bags out of landfills and eliminates the use of 0.17 pounds of plastic.

Our favorite site for finding some really strong and designer chic reusable shopping bags is

You Can Buy Lots of Reusable Bags Online

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/shopping-bags-c-2.html

That completes our roundup of the top 5 ways to precycle, we hope you enjoyed our article.

Let us know how you plan to “Precycle” in 2010! We’d love to hear from you…