My husband and I use a lot of paper in our jobs. John is a real estate broker and often has a lot of flyers printed on one side. When the home is sold, or the information is outdated (price reduction or such), we keep all of the extra fliers and print on the backside (just inserting the paper into the tray upside down) for printing things for our personal use. We also use a lot of the envelopes that we get in the mail for shopping lists and for writing notes to each other (using up the space) before we recycle it. We haven’t purchased any note pads in the past 10 years. We also purchase a lot of our foods in bulk, to reduce packaging.
The trip to the landfill will remain in my mind forever. We can’t like this, it is not sustainable. One decision that I have made is to talk to people about reducing, reusing and recycling more often. With my hairdresser, with my neighbors, with my co-workers. Social Media has shown the value of a single post being shared again and again. Hopefully the message for the 3Rs will become greater than all of the air born and tree stuck plastic bags in our environment.