The 7 R's of Sustainability and why recycling is LAST on the list!

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Reduce, reuse, recycle. You're familiar with the old adage. But there are more R's that define sustainability, so let's dive into those today. And also why they are in that order. Hello everyone, it's Emma and welcome back to my channel where I talk about all sorts of things zero waste focusing on free, easy, and fun ways to live low waste and ways that we can all be activists. If I talk a little bit too fast for you, there's a gear icon over here where you can change the speed of the video to something that better suits you. I have to like really cadence that out or else I fly through that. If you're more interested in what is sustainability, what is zero waste, you can check out this video next. But for now, let's dive into these categories that all start with R that kind of are the pillars for sustainability, if you will. Of course, we already know about reduce, reuse, and recycle, but there are more R's that you might hear such as refuse, rot, rethink, repair, and repurpose. That's a lot. So, let's actually define them, talk about them, what these actually mean, and also the order of importance in which they are in. So, first is rethink. The first step to living a sustainable life is to think through your purchases. So, ask yourself, do I really need this item? If the answer is yes, can I find it package free or in a more sustainable packaging?

[00:01:02]Not only this, but also thinking about how far that item may have traveled to ship to you. Is the brand a small business or mega corporation? Can it be purchased from a local store instead of a large chain? And so forth. Every aspect of that item has a footprint, not just about its packaging. So, look into the big picture of each item you buy. It is a lot of work, I have to admit, but once you do that research one time, then that brand is already in your head.

[00:01:23]Unless something like major changes with that brand, you can just keep going back to them time and time again. You also don't necessarily have to do all of the work yourself. You can read customer reviews on the website, you can watch videos about reviews, whatever. There are so many ways that you can learn more about a product or a brand besides like doing a full deep dive days long trek on their website. And this also comes down to the most sustainable thing is the thing that you already own. So, rethinking, do I even need that item in the first place? Which brings us to our next one, which is refuse. We live in a culture of overconsumption, and if you think you might fall into that camp, you might be a little bit of an overconsumer, that is okay. We all were at some point, especially if you were born and raised in the United States.

[00:02:02]So, check out this video next all about how to break up with overconsumption. As I just said, the most sustainable thing is the thing that you already have. And the second most sustainable thing after that is to refuse buying new stuff that you don't actually need. Think through your impulse purchases and see what you can live without and see what you can't live without. Now, obviously, at least I hope it's obvious, please still buy your necessities. Please buy food, water, shelter, gas for your car, um medication, you pay your bills, and things like that. I'm not here to declare what is a want versus a need for you. I can only do that for myself. But really, this category is just an exercise in thinking through your purchases before you just mind-numbingly add something to cart and ship it to your house without thinking. I want everybody to become more conscious consumers and aware of the purchases that they are making, who that money is going towards, is that money going to be bad for the planet or good for the planet? And ultimately, do you actually need {slash} want that item or is it just trendy? Is it just an impulse? So, take time to think through your purchases and ask yourself a few or all of these questions. Do I already have something at home that fills this role?

[00:03:03]Where will I store this item? How often will I use it? What will I even use it for? How long have I wanted this item?

[00:03:09]If it's only been a few minutes, give it time. If you've thought about it for days or weeks, it is probably going to add significant value to your life.

[00:03:16]Speaking of, what value will this bring to your life? And what will I do that item when it no longer serves me?

[00:03:20]Another old saying that I do believe goes back to World War II that might help with this category of refuse is, use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. And I kind of like that it rhymes. Oh, this was actually popularized during the Great Depression, but I think it still has really great um use here in the modern eco age. And also, I need to be better about this.

[00:03:39]This also looks like saying no when out in public, when offered a straw, when offered a um a pamphlet, when offered something gimmicky at like a concert or a a conference. It's okay to say no to something that you won't actually use.

[00:03:53]It might feel impolite, it might feel rude, but if you take that item and you don't actually read it and you throw it away or recycle it, that's actually probably more rude than being honest and saying, yeah, like I I don't need that item. I don't want that item. I won't use that item. You don't actually have to say that, you can just say no. No is a complete sentence. So, I'm going to hold myself to that one and hopefully you join me in saying no more often when you're handed stuff at a public event.

[00:04:16]Number three is reduce. If you can't give up an item completely, just try using less of it. We are often overusing things in our own homes, which leads us to consume more and more of that item.

[00:04:26]This can be environmentally wasteful and a waste of money. Try using, for example, one less square of toilet paper, taking a shower that's 30 seconds shorter than normal, using an actual serving of laundry detergent and not just guessing, and many things along those lines. As you go through the motions of taking care of yourself and your home, see what you can reduce along the way. For me, the difference between refuse and reduce, refusing is all about the things that I do not need, I do not want. And reducing is the things that I cannot live without and just trying to make do with a little bit less. Not putting a whole glob of toothpaste on my toothbrush and just using the precise amount. Not using an entire handful of shampoo and using the correct amount.

[00:05:03]This helps to stretch the product's life, save you the most money, and reduce resource usage over the long run.

[00:05:08]Number four, reuse. As the items in your life start to come to an end, see if there are any ways to reuse them. We will be talking about repurposing next, which to me is a little bit different.

[00:05:19]To me, reusing is pretty much using that item in the exact same way that it was once used or similar way. For example, my coffee this morning is in a reused jar. Am I using it as a jar? No, I'm using it as a cup. I think that's pretty similar though to the original purpose of this jar.

[00:05:36]Whereas repurposing this jar might be like painting it and turning it into a candle holder or going absolutely crazy and like melting it down and making stained glass out of it. To me, that's repurposing, giving it a new purpose, but reusing is literally using it again in the exact same way in which you once used it. This might also look like reusing a jar as a jar. For example, I think this probably had, I don't know, honey, peanut butter, jam in it. I really don't know what was in it.

[00:06:01]Cleaning it out and then reusing it as a jar. Taking it to the bulk store and still using it for food storage. That's a perfect example of reusing. But it might also look like taking a scrap piece of paper to write a to-do list on.

[00:06:12]Using an old yogurt or hummus container to store leftovers in or organize craft items. And saving that shipping box to send my own package in. And things like that. There's a lot of overlap between reusing and repurposing, so don't like sweat the definition. Both of them come down to keeping that item out of the landfill and giving it new life. So, speaking of, our next one is repurpose.

[00:06:31]So, what is repurposing? Well, to me, it is giving that item new life in a way that wasn't originally intended for that item to be used. I've got one right here. This paintbrush holder is made out of trash and honestly, you might never know what this was made out of, tape rings. Like when we ran out of duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape, I saved the cardboard rings and I stacked them up and then I did a little bit of like not quite paper mache. I think it was probably just paper or newspaper or maybe even tape um to hold them together and give them one solid structure and then I painted over it. And I've had this for years. It's moved with me I don't know, five times in my life. So, it's still keeping that item out of the landfill, but instead of using that old yogurt container as a container, maybe you turn it into a planter. Here are a few other ideas from my home personally that you can take inspiration from. I love to take old t-shirts, cut them up, and turn them into rugs. I've made my own makeup remover pads out of an old pillowcase. Damaged cutting boards are fun to paint on to make wall art out of.

[00:07:28]Hummus lid containers are perfect to save for drip trays for houseplants. And I've also used damaged clothing and fabric scraps to be reused to stuff furniture, stuffed animals, and cat beds. It is once again preventing stuff from going to the landfill and giving it new life somewhere else in your home.

[00:07:43]All right, number six in ASL is repair.

[00:07:46]If you have damaged, stained, or otherwise ruined items, let's give them new life so that we can wear them once again. Some repairs might be really easy such as adding a button back on. I also recently sewed an armpit hole shut in my pajamas. Stuff like that that is either easy to learn or doesn't matter if it's ugly or not because it's pajamas. It might also just look like if you have a wobbly table or nightstand, tightening it up with your screwdriver instead of like throwing the whole thing away and getting a new one. If you have a stained shirt, it can be really easy to dye it with some liquid dye that you can get at the craft store over a pot on the stove.

[00:08:18]Repairing doesn't have to be perfect, complicated, time-consuming, difficult.

[00:08:22]And if you're a bit of a perfectionist, you might have to let go of that. Like repairing does not have to be perfect.

[00:08:26]And if you want it to be perfect, you might just have to hire somebody else to help you out. So, when a repair does go beyond your skill level, that doesn't mean you need to throw that item out.

[00:08:34]You can request assistance. For example, Dan had quite the collection of watches, his own that he inherited from his grandpa, and many of them were broken in some capacity or another. The watch face, the actual mechanisms inside, the watch band, many different issues with the watches that he was just like, I cannot fix these. So, instead of throwing them away, especially some of the more valuable family heirlooms, and just like, you know, clicking add to cart on Amazon, he found a local watch repair store and we went there the other day. And he got all of his watches fixed. Also recently, after New Years, I had a hole in my fancy party pants and it was right along the pocket seam. And I'm like, I really don't think I'm going to do a good job with that. I would rather just take them to a tailor. And it only cost me $10 to have a professional do it and it look amazing.

[00:09:21]We've also had major appliance repairs recently. Our furnace went out and it was way beyond our capacity to deal with. Plus, our landlady pays for it, so we're going to have her pay for it. And they sent out a whole crew to come repair our furnace. Same with your car, a laptop, a refrigerator, a vacuum. You don't have to learn how to repair all of these things yourselves. There are experts out there, especially because a lot of these crafts like are dying. Like watchmaking is not a common profession anymore. So, please go support your local watchmakers, your local cobblers, your local seamstresses, people who have very important niche skills that are not really valued by society anymore because we're in a such a throwaway world. That would be an interesting video to talk about these skills that are dying because of overconsumption. Please go support them. It makes sense that we would repair our more expensive items like a cracked smartphone, but what if we treated all of our items this way? As valuable and worthy of repairs. Let's do more repairing and less buying new. Of course, there is a line here. There are only so many times you can mend a pair of socks before they are just 100% thread. Some of Donahue's toys he would destroy beyond repair. Like there was there's a line, right? You know where to cross that line, which brings us into our last few categories. Once your items are totally beyond repair, we still need to think of a few more options before we get to the landfill. Starting with number seven, rot. I know it sounds gross, but to fit the theme of the R's, we call it rot instead of compost. Now, I think most people just think of composting food waste, and that's absolutely amazing. Food waste is one of the leading contributors to methane emissions, and methane is more potent than CO2. And also, it's a really easy thing for us to do to reduce a ton of emissions is to compost. But also, so many of our things in our home are compostable. Your hair, your fingernails, cotton swabs, tissues, greasy pizza boxes, brown paper, newspapers. There's a lot more things that we can compost besides just food waste. Another interesting video I could make in a future is the difference between like composting paper versus recycling paper. Which should we be doing? I don't know, actually. So, if you're interested in that, let me know.

[00:11:27]And good news, composting is easier than you might think, and methane is not created in compost settings. You can set up a compost yourself or use a service to do the work for you if you simply don't want to compost or don't have the time or space. And you can learn more about all of the different ways to compost in this video. You put your food waste in a pile, a bin, or in a commercial composting setting, and let the magic happen. Instead of methane greenhouse gases, we get black gold nutrient-rich soil. It is literally the process of turning food waste back to the earth and we get free fertilizer from it. And our last R is recycle. Yes, it is last. It should always be your last thought before the landfill. It is not the solution to climate change or our waste. It is a bandage solution because it is so flawed. Well, at least in the US, recycling is not great. But even if you live in a country where your recycling rates are really, really high, that's still not an excuse to recycle over all of the other things on this list. It is still better to refuse that item in the first place, to reduce what you consume, to to upcycle, to repair, all of those other R's. Do those first before recycling. Not to mention, our recycling facilities cannot take everything. In theory, every single thing should be able to be recycled, but not everything has the capacity to be recycled in our current system as we do not have the infrastructure to recycle 100% of our items. Of course, recycle where you can. Valuable items like metal and glass especially so. It is still better than the landfill, but the other six R's that we just talked about are better than recycling. So, when I'm at the store, it's not necessarily the best practice to look at that item and be like, "Okay, is it recyclable or not?"

[00:13:01]Instead, maybe take it back a few steps up on this list and think, "Oh, is that item reusable? Can I find it package-free and just refuse that packaging to begin with? Could I use it for crafting material?" And things like that. And while we're here, I'm going to emphasize that you please follow your recycling rules. I have a recent video all about general recycling tips that you can check out right here, but even in that video, I still say like eight million times, "Please check your local rules before recycling because every region is different." Even if you've lived in the same area your entire life, still refresh yourself on the rules because rules change. So, still recycle.

[00:13:34]I'm not saying that recycling should never happen. Recycling is still a great option above the landfill, but please ensure that you're recycling correctly and that you still consider a last resort before the landfill and try the other R's first. And that brings us to the landfill. You have exhausted all of the R's on this list. Yes, it is okay to send that item to the landfill. I'm not here to say that you should never be using the landfill. I still do. There are plenty of things I throw away like our cat's litter. Sure, I'm I'm sure I could find ways to compost it, but like composting animal waste and human waste has risks, and I don't want to deal with that right now. I think something else to know here that I get asked a lot, too, is how do you prevent yourself from hoarding a bunch of stuff because it might have a use later? In the sense of like reusing, repurposing, upcycling.

[00:14:17]And for me, I keep items that I have a specific project in mind for. I just collected a whole bunch of toilet paper tubes, and I'm working on a little crafty vlog on what I'm using them for, so stay tuned for that. Here's a sneak peek. So, I kept those toilet paper tubes because I had a craft in mind. I didn't just keep them for fun. Now, stuff that I will keep a lot of are boxes and jars because they have so many uses. But then, once my jar shelf gets full, I'm going to recycle some of them or donate them to a thrift store or put them up for grabs on my local Buy Nothing group. I'm not going to keep every single piece of trash just because maybe it'll have some value to me later.

[00:14:52]I used to live like that, and then I found myself decluttering all the time, and I just I just had too much stuff.

[00:14:57]So, I have set myself a limit. And as I already hinted at, there are many things in our lives that should only be thrown away, namely things with bodily waste on them, bandages, snotty tissues, diapers, menstrual products, pet products like that they pee and poop in. There's no need to keep or find another means of disposal for contaminated items. So, again, it is okay to throw stuff away, but I hope to restructure your thinking and also my own in making this, to treat the landfill as a last resort. When you have a piece of trash in front of you, or better yet, when you're at the store picking out which material to bring into your home, think through these list of R's. See if you can refuse it in the first place, otherwise you can repurpose it, etc., etc. Because I hope that more people will realize that they do not have to throw out that old pickle jar.

[00:15:43]They can wash and reuse it. I hope to see people not throwing away a stained shirt, but instead that they can dye it or turn it into cleaning rags. You get the idea. Our small actions truly matter when it comes to social justice and the environment, and and I hope that you see that in every single one of my videos.

[00:15:58]Let us know down below how you avoid the landfill. What sort of upcycles have you done recently? I have one in mind. So, as I mentioned, I turn old textiles into rugs. I've made five in my life, and it has been so fun. But recently, I have been cropping my shirts because I just like the way that they fit on me better.

[00:16:15]And so then I have like, you know, 3-4 in of fabric from several shirts. That's not enough to make a rug out of. I want to make a bag, which would also be a new crochet method. So, stay tuned for that.

[00:16:27]Maybe I'll vlog it. I've been trying out a few like eco-crafty vlogs recently because I like to show off my crafts. I like to show that you can craft and have a fun-filled whimsical life despite caring for the planet. But you know, if you don't like these vlogs and you prefer my talking videos like this, that's fine. I won't show you my little crafts. But if you want to see my little crafts, let me know. That is all for today. Thank you so much for watching. I truly appreciate your time, especially if you made it all the way to the end.

[00:16:52]Thank you for learning. Thank you for caring about the planet. Please don't forget to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Hit the subscribe button if you're new here. I'm sure if you liked this video, you'd like the rest of my videos. And if you learned anything valuable, it might also be a fun idea to share this with others. That is all that I have for today. Thank you for watching. I will see you in the next video, but until then, remember that your small actions make a big difference in the long run. Bye, guys.

[00:17:13]All right, I'm so confused how in just one week, the sun was like blasting right here at this time. Oh, right. All right.

[00:17:20]All right. All right.

[00:17:24]>> [laughter] >> For real [clears throat] this time.

[00:17:27]We've got homemade maple latte, thrifted jacket. I do need a lip balm. Oh, everyone, it's Emma.

[00:17:34]I was distracted.

[00:17:36]>> [clears throat]