If you pay by the bag to have your trash hauled away, you can save money by throwing away less and diverting more. By defining "diverting" as "not throwing it in the waste bin", any recycling effort, composting effort, or reuse effort contributes to your household diversion ratio (what you divert versus what you throw away). "On-site diversion" is any effort whereby something never reaches the curb, such as composting of kitchen scraps, and not only saves you money in haul-away fees, but also provides free compost, saving more money. But if your recycling is free or a fixed rate, then recycling will save you money as well versus the per-bag fee. Our landfills will last longer, saving our municipalities the costs, and thereby our tax dollars.
Not sending waste to a landfill or incinerator has environmental benefits as well. Carrots, cabbages, and newspapers, all things you might think would break down in a landfill, have been found still intact over thirty years later. The things we were taught would breakdown in the landfill are not, along with the plastics and metals we knew would still be there, leaching their components into the soil and water table over time. Incineration immediately releases the components into the air even faster than landfill decay would release them. So increasing our household diversion ratio benefits the environment.
The decision is made next to the shopping cart, not next to the waste bin.
Once you have carried a product home, you have a limited number of ways to dispose of packaging and waste. Select your purchases based on how you will divert the waste. Often you will find that bulk purchasing of items in recylceable packaging, loose materials from bins carried home in your own bag, and products wrapped simply in paper, are less costly as well.
Spend less money, help the environment.
Not sending waste to a landfill or incinerator has environmental benefits as well. Carrots, cabbages, and newspapers, all things you might think would break down in a landfill, have been found still intact over thirty years later. The things we were taught would breakdown in the landfill are not, along with the plastics and metals we knew would still be there, leaching their components into the soil and water table over time. Incineration immediately releases the components into the air even faster than landfill decay would release them. So increasing our household diversion ratio benefits the environment.
The decision is made next to the shopping cart, not next to the waste bin.
Once you have carried a product home, you have a limited number of ways to dispose of packaging and waste. Select your purchases based on how you will divert the waste. Often you will find that bulk purchasing of items in recylceable packaging, loose materials from bins carried home in your own bag, and products wrapped simply in paper, are less costly as well.
Spend less money, help the environment.
