WAYS TO REDUCE GARBAGE AT HOME

• Bring your own cloth bags or paper bags when you go shopping so you don’t waste materials. You can use your bags over and over again.
• When your family washes the dishes each day, use a cloth towel instead of paper towels.  Cloth towels can be used again and again, while a paper towel will be used once and then thrown away.
• Try not to buy overly-packaged goods.
• Don’t buy more than you can eat.
• Use reusable food containers for leftovers instead of baggies or aluminum foil. 
• Buy certain products that are recyclable instead of others that are not such as the ones listed below.

 WAYS TO REUSE GARBAGE AT HOME

• Have a yard sale to sell stuff you don’t want or need so other people can use them.
• Bring books you don’t want any more to the library to see if they can use them.
• Use the back of paper (both sides).
• Donate clothes you don’t wear anymore to charity.
• Use recycled materials at home when you do crafts or projects.
• Use newspapers to line the inside of a pet’s cage.
• Wrap presents in the comics from a newspaper.
• Make gift tags by cutting up old Christmas or birthday cards.
• Use paper grocery bags to wrap boxes that need to be mailed.
• Return clothes hangers and plastic bags to the cleaners to be used again.
• Reuse ribbons and bows from packages.
• Make a compost of organic leftovers.
• Make a “reuse-it” drawer to put different kinds of little objects that you know you will use again such as rubber bands, paper clips, string, envelopes, twist-ties, buttons, screws, and safety pins.

WAYS TO RECYCLE GARBAGE AT HOME

• Collect old newspapers, magazines, boxes and paper bags and put them into bundles to give to your town’s recycling center.  The old paper can be used again. You can do the same thing with glass, cans and plastic.
• Start your own recycling center at home.
• Buy drinks in returnable bottles.
• Recycle inkjet cartridges and old cell phone