Household Waste Management: Reuse

The average American creates 5 pounds of waste per day, half which is recycled in some manner, leaving roughly 2.5 pounds of waste per day. The ultimate goal of waste management is to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills to the absolute minimum through recycling and/or reuse of all suitable materials.

Reuse Reuse is essentially any action that extends the life of a product and keeps it out of the waste system.

There are three ways to reuse items.

Purchasing Durable Items

Repurposing

Reassigning

Photo: Bullitt County Prom Dress Exchange Event (photo courtesy of Lorilee George).

Reassigning

Reuse can take some thinking, planning, and work on your part, but the substantial benefits in cost and waste reduction make reuse worth it.

References: HENV-101 Household Waste Management: Reduce (2010). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from HENV-102 Household Waste Management: Reuse (2010). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from HENV-103 Household Waste Management: Recycle(2010). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from HENV-104 Household Waste Management: Hazardous Waste (2010). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from Photo credits: Unless otherwise noted photos and clipart used in this presentation were obtained from Microsoft Office ( November Contact : Ashley Osborne, M.S., Extension Associate for Environmental and Natural Resource Issues. E: P: Date : November 2011