Brown County Port & Resource Recovery

The Five RC's

Reject, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Compost

Did you know that recycling is not the first thing we should be thinking about? It is very important to think of our waste products when we make our purchasing decisions. Use these links to see if you can find better alternatives to recycling.

Reject

As a consumer you have the right to buy things that have less wasteful packaging or are not single use items. Let manufacturers know that you are no longer going to pay for excess packaging like a lot of foil, plastic or cardboard. It not only costs you more money, but wastes natural resources and precious landfill space. Whenever possible reject products that are over packaged, made of non-recyclable materials or are not recyclable locally.

Reduce

Find ways to avoid using items that will eventually end up in landfills. There are hundreds of disposable things we use every day that could be replaced by more durable, repairable and reusable items. Something as simple as switching to a reusable lunch bag will greatly reduce your "contribution" to landfills.

Reducing our use of disposable items is the first priority in managing our waste problems. Pay careful attention to the products you purchase. Try to avoid buying items intended to be used once and then discarded. Become an environmentally smart consumer.

Reuse

Before tossing an item into the trash consider how it can be re-used by yourself or someone else. Can that food container be used for leftovers or other storage? Is there a friend, neighbor, school or library that would like your old books and magazines? Can clothing or small appliances be taken to a charitable re-sale shop so that someone else might use them? You can sell an item at a neighborhood yard sale. Just because you don't want something doesn't mean it can't be used by someone else. "One man's junk is another man's treasure."

Repair

We tend to think of most things as "disposable". If something is broken we throw it away. Much of what we throw away can be repaired and serve a much longer life. The longer we are able to use things like appliances, furniture and clothing the longer it will stay out of the landfills and save our precious resources. Repairing an item is generally much less expensive than buying a new one.

Many of us don't think twice about repairing an expensive item like our house or car, but how many of us repair the smaller things we own rather than purchasing a replacement. Fixing a broken chair, mending a torn sweater or repairing an appliance may seem insignificant at first, but all are important contributions to the waste reduction effort. Often a household item like a washing machine or vacuum cleaner can be repaired a number of times before it has to be replaced. The original purchasing decision has an impact on how easily an item will be repaired. Choosing durable items capable of being repaired extends the useful life beyond the first time it breaks.

Recycle

Finally! Believe it or not recycling is the last option we need to consider when trying to preserve our natural resources. When you've gone through the reject, reduce, repair and reuse steps and something is really used up consider if it is a candidate for recycling. Remember recycling means buying products that are made from recycled materials, using them to their fullest extent and then returning them to be recycled again.

Recycling goes beyond the bottles and cans we put into our curbside bins. It includes composting organic materials and recycling many other materials not accepted curbside. Check out Beyond the Bin to find out what more you can do.

Compost

Composting yard materials and certain food scraps can provide valuable material for gardens and landscaping while reducing costs for landfilling. Compost is a soil-like material produced from the breakdown of organic materials that is rich in stabilized carbon. It is considered a soil amendment, rather than a fertilizer, because it usually contains only small amounts of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in comparison to lawn fertilizer which contains significant amounts of all three. Home composting can be done in bins or in a heap, however, in an urban setting, bins are a better way to manage the materials.

The Five RC's

Reject, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Compost

Reject

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