In this consumerist society, our impact on the environment is having upsetting consequences.

Economic progress and the consumption's increase are leading to an exponential gain of waste growth.

Climate changes, deforestation, overheating and pollution are just some of the consequences that we are carrying around from this territory exploitation.

To make things improve, the real change must come from each of us, in our houses, in our daily life.

This is what this article is about: why it is important to recycle, which are recycle advantages and how everyone can contribute to improve our planet's health.

Why recycling is important

Recycling means basically transforming waste in materials that can be reused.

In this way it is possible to save on raw materials and energetic consumption that comes from the textile production.

Issues deriving from waste disposal in landfills, in fact, have been reaching worrying proportions in past years.

The dispose of refuses in landfills has a huge economic impact, moreover the biggest damages are caused by the input of harmful substances.

With these premises, it comes out the importance of reducing the production of waste intended to disposal.

This change must be the result of a collective action, of a swing of our forma mentis.

It takes only a few precautions to manage to reach all together this result, starting from 3 simple but fundamental points:

• Contributing to garbage collection
• Recycling at home, reusing materials and packaging
• Producing less waste

Let's see these points more closely.

How to do garbage collection at home

The first step towards a bigger sustainability is, without doubt, to put particular attention to garbage collection.

This action can lead to many advantages for everyone:

• Reducing the disposal in landfills
• Reducing environmental impact
• Reducing costs derived from the disposal
• Contributing to the creation of employment in recycle area

But how to correctly collect garbage at our own house? The first rule is to divide our waste basing on their type, dividing it in:

• Unsorted waste
• Organic waste
• Paper and cardboard
• Glass
• Plastic

Medicines, dangerous refuses, domestic appliances, clothes and cumbersome waste don't follow the traditional mode of disposal: there are specific containers and bodies charged to their disposal.

So, avoid throwing them in the unsorted waste container, get informed instead about the collecting and recycling mode of these particular materials.

How to recycle at home

Beside the garbage collection, there are many ideas you can adopt to reuse waste materials.

So here are some ideas to recycle at home, saving money and contributing to the planet's welfare.

Don't throw away your old clothes

Old clothes can be reused in many ways, without throwing them in the trashcan.

If they are in good condition, you can think to exchange them. There are many different events on the territory in which is possible to exchange clothes that we don't wear anymore with other clothes.

If your aim is to make space in your wardrobe, then you can think of donating your clothes to some charitable association that will redistribute them to people who can't afford them.

Another solution can be transforming your old clothes, just as we do here at Rifò. Take a look at our store.

There are plenty of ideas to transform our clothes!

Countless use of glass jars

Glass jars are perfect to become containers for your home.

Pasta, salt, buttons, pencils: everything will remain tidy in a glass jar.

Jars can also be decorated to give a color touch to the home.

Plastic bottles

Also plastic bottles can be reused without throwing them away.

You can cut them to make flower vases or creating a trough for the birds in your garden.

Ideas to reuse everyday objects are infinite. The only limit is your creativity!

How to produce less waste

Besides recycling, another solution to preserve the environment is to produce less waste.

With a few shrewdnesses, you could make a more sustainable shopping.

Let's see how:

• While shopping, always use cloth or canvas bags, that you can wash and reuse whenever you want.
• Purchase bulk products, like detergents for example.
• Drink tap water or fill your bottles in "water distributors" of your city.
• Prefer products with recycled or reusable packagings.
• Limit the purchase in big supermarket stores, choose instead to buy directly from producers.
• Avoid to buy plastic cutlery, glasses and plates.
• Limit the use of paper, like for doing shopping. You could use your cellphone! There are many apps that you can use to make your shopping list.

Conclusions

Recycling, but also producing less refuses, can be done by everyone.

Seeing the numbers of waste impact on the environment in the past year, we believe that recycling is also a must for each one of us.

It takes only a few precautions to improve our environment, like contributing to recycling, doing the garbage collection, reusing materials and packaging to produce less waste.

A few gestures that can make the difference, improving ours and our planet's health.

Which precautions do you use to improve the environment? Let us know with a comment below!

For any information write us at ciao@rifo-lab.com