Courtesy of Uniform Project
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Growing up, environmentalism meant the 3 R's. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" was ingrained into my head as a school child, seeping into everything from science text books to mandatory choir lessons. It was as if armies of children across the U.S. were being trained to walk the streets, armed with a new way to experience the world around them. And it worked. Environmental awareness is seemingly the highest it's ever been. There is widespread concern about climate change, hybrid cars dot highways, and recycling bins are about as ubiquitous as trash cans. In fact, of all the eco-initiatives to take root in recent years, recycling in particular has stepped into its own new realm--the unofficial king of the R's.
But what about the other two? Reduce is fairly intuitive. Reduce the amount of energy you use at home by turning off lights when you're not in rooms. Reduce the amount of pollution that you spew into the atmosphere by carpooling with a co-worker. These make sense.
Reuse, on the other hand, is not so easy. Most of us will not look at an old, dingy mattress with the box spring sticking out and think it is going to be our next wine rack.Yet, that's exactly what it could be.
Recently, people have shown us that reusing stuff lying around is not only easily done, it can be pretty cool too. After all, what's a greener product than one that already exists? As Planet Green's own Jaymi Heimbuch so insightfully put it, reuse "is even greener than recycling."
Creative Reuse
A colleague was recently at an event in New York, and as part of the giveaways, she got a notebook made from microwaveable popcorn packaging. They must have had misprinted or off-centered labels, some sort of flaw that prevented them being put into production. Instead of getting chucked to the dumpster, though, they were reclaimed and repurposed into something someone might use.
It was as good and functional looking as any other notebook--especially when you stack it up to the kind of schwag one typically gets at events and conventions. It was perhaps more interesting than most, because there was a neat story behind it too. Examples like these highlight how reusing and repurposing goods are increasingly growing trends, especially in economic times when it makes sense to be more efficient with how you spend on what. It's about returning or giving value to things that would otherwise go wasted. It's about being handy with what's around, something that will appeal to the inner MacGyver or Martha Stewart in all of us.
Repurposing with Purpose
That's great, you say. How am I going to transform industrial waste into a household product? You're not alone. But that doesn't mean you can't take normal, everyday objects and transform them into some pretty unexpected, pretty incredible things. On e-commerce and online auction sites, people have been giving new life to old, used, vintage, or discarded products for years. One woman in particular is taking the notion of creative reuse to a whole new level. She pledged to wear one little black dress every day for an entire year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. Calling it The Uniform Project, she's creating new looks for the dress every day with used and vintage accessories, mostly gotten from eBay. The project is an effort to raise awareness about children's education in India, but it also proves how much can be done with existing stuff with a little bit of creativity.
Unique stories like The Uniform Projects' aside, the shocking and cool part is that most users on sites like eBay don't often realize they are doing something that's good for the planet. This is where one of the greatest opportunities for the green movement lies. Green isn't just about driving a biodisel car or only eating organic food; it's also about doing simple, ordinary things that many people have been doing their whole lives. It's about turning an old, worn-down suitcase into a pet bed. It's about turning old fabric into scrap necklaces. It's just that nobody ever called it green before.
Ashwin Seshagiri is a Green Team member at eBay, the world's largest online marketplace for used, vintage, and repurposed goods. To find out more about the eBay Green Team, click here.
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