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WasteNot: The last 'R' in the 3 R's should be a last resort Risa Buck Thursday Dec 1, 2016 at 8:43 PM Dec 1, 2016 at 8:43 PM By Risa Buck For the Tidings I am pleased to introduce this new addition to the Ashland Daily Tidings. I thank Editor Bert Etling for contacting me about writing a column about waste prevention for our community. Before getting into WasteNot column details, I will share a little bit about myself. I grew up in Houston, Texas, and left upon graduation from high school. I have collected degrees in philosophy, juvenile justice and community development in Arizona, Ohio and California. During the 25 years I have lived in Southern Oregon I have worked at the Ashland Co-op, in Jackson County Schools teaching mediation and conflict resolution, and with Ashland Sanitary/Recology for nearly a decade. I worked with organizations, businesses and individuals teaching classes, doing waste audits and championing waste prevention and recycling. I built Ashland’s first “off grid” home in 1995 which led to my participation with the newly formed Ashland Conservation Commission in 1996. I have served on the Conservation Commission for most of my Ashland life. I was recently re-appointed by Mayor John Stromberg for a new term as a citizen participant. In this bi-weekly column I hope to inspire and support your efforts to better understand and wrestle successfully with some of the complexities challenging us as consumers. The focus will be on “low-hanging fruit.” These are opportunities that don’t demand large expenses but invite us to re-organize and prepare differently for outings. For example: How to avoid or minimize packaging by buying in bulk; bringing your own bags, containers and cups; avoiding disposables; purchasing used items; re-purposing materials inside and outside the home or office; and maximizing the existing recycling opportunities in the Rogue Valley, includes paint, electronics, large metal, CFL’s, soft plastic, glass, organics and more. There is an expression that I believe was born in the ’70s as recycling was just taking form in the United States. It is called the "3 R's." The 3 R’s stand for Reduce, Re-use and then Recycle. I have a passion toward the first 2 R’s, Reducing and Reusing. If we can make choices that avoid the need to recycle altogether, that’s a home run! Undoubtedly, recycling an item trumps landfilling it, but avoiding acquiring an item that may or may not be recycled in our community is a higher striving. For example: If I am using and re-filling the same durable water bottle, this choice offers many benefits: 1. Saves you money, 2. Supports our delicious local water, 3. Preserves resources and footprint to manufacture the plastic bottle, ship it to a bottling plant, fill it with water and ship it to your grocer for one thirst quenching event. And then the bottle’s disposal (which could include returning it to the grocer to redeem the deposit you paid for, and they recycle it). Or you put it in your home recycling and the deposit is lost — or you trash it) when you enjoy the last sip. We will look into this topic more closely in the near future. I invite you to take a moment to discover “what’s in your trash?” We will dip into that more next time. Please direct ALL questions concerning your trash/recycle needs to www.recologyashland.com. Risa Buck has served on the Ashland Conservation Commission and in waste prevention education for more than a decade. You may reach her through [email protected].