reuse | Office of Sustainability

By Lauren Pawlowski

Plants growing at the community gardens in Derby, CT.

Personal, financial, and health requirements may prevent you from being your most environmentally-friendly self right now, but there are still small steps you can take each day to support a more sustainable lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health and safety is of utmost importance at this time, but if you have the time and means to do so, you can try out the following tips for living more sustainably during a pandemic.

Use washable, reusable masks. Many people hand make them out of extra fabric or other materials and sell them on Etsy, Facebook sale pages, etc. You can also make your own, if you have free time. Wearing disposable masks every time you need to use one creates a great amount of waste that can be avoided if you are able to wash and wear reusable masks.
Try to stick to reusable containers, towels, etc. You’ll need to wash them more frequently, but this will prevent unnecessary waste.
Buy in bulk when you can. This reduces wasteful packaging and helps minimize grocery store visits.
Clean up your spaces and declutter! Now’s a great time to clean out any junk drawers or messy spaces in your home. Donate these materials to Goodwill, Savers, the Salvation Army, or other organizations near you. Many of these organizations will sell the donated items if they can, or send the unsaleable materials to other processing centers for reuse or recycling. If you want a new project to tackle, repainting furniture from a thrift store can save you some money and make your stuff more meaningful.
Spend quarantine free time reading new books – audio books and earbuds allow you to multitask while you learn. You might even get a head start on the UConn Reads book this fall, Amitav Ghosh’s “The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable,” which addresses climate justice from a Global South perspective. Many websites, such as Alibris and Betterworldbooks, have great selections of used books online for low prices. This saves you money while also encouraging reuse of materials! You can also choose to go paperless and tune into TV shows, YouTube videos, movies, and podcasts.
Volunteer at a community garden, urban forestry initiative, coastal cleanup, land trust, watershed group, or other environmentally-focused organization. This can include planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, grounds maintenance and more to benefit your local community. Helping out sustainable community initiatives provides support to people in need and also the local environment.
Get outside! Now is the perfect time to explore the great outdoors, where there is plenty of room for social distancing. Go hiking, walking, running, biking, kayaking, boating, fishing, swimming, picnicking or gardening. Travel to new places nearby or visit a local park. Get your friends and family outside to spend some time together in nature. Take a garbage bag with you to make sure you leave “nothing but footsteps” or even to clean up after others!
Research and support sustainable brands. This can include cosmetics, clothing, household products, and more that produce durable products and are committed to protecting environmental and human health.
Grow your own fruits and veggies, visit local farmers’ markets, and try new recipes that are meatless or more sustainable. Some farmers’ markets are still operating even in these times by offering goods for sale online or by outdoor vendors. Individual farms may have their own stores operating as well, although you should call ahead or check online for hours and restrictions. If you have free time, it could be fun to test out some new recipes with different vegetables, grains, and other ingredients that are healthy and sustainable.
Start a compost pile. This prevents food waste from entering the waste stream in landfills, where, in CT, it will be incinerated as trash. Instead, you can use the healthy soil from the compost in your garden or for any plants you have!

Disclaimer: CDC, state, and local health department guidelines should always be followed in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and risk of infection. The above recommendations should not supplant health guidelines from public health agencies and the medical community. These suggestions should only be employed as they align with CDC, state, and local health guidelines.

By Emma MacDonald

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Students learn these words at a very young age. But their meaning and importance are often swept aside as kids grow older. Instead of forgetting about these fundamentals, we should be expanding upon them. Recycling, while accessible and easy, is not the best option of the three for environmental health. In fact, of the three, it is the least environmentally friendly. It is better to reduce your consumption of all items in general, but since consuming nothing at all is impossible in the current state of the world, at least reducing consumption of harmful materials would lessen a person’s environmental impact quite a bit. Reusing an item is also better than recycling it, as less energy is consumed in order to make and recycle one item that someone used over a period of time than two or three or four of the same item in that same window. So here is a list of ways to first reduce, then reuse your items before you recycle them.

Reduce:

Replace single use items with reusable ones once you have used up all pre-owned single use versions
1. Plastic bags → Rope/Canvas produce bags
2. Plastic/Paper grocery/shopping bags → Canvas reusable bags
3. Single use plastic water bottles → Metal/Glass/Reusable plastic water bottle
4. Plastic disposable razor → Metal razor
5. Face wipes → Washcloth
6. Toothbrush → Electric toothbrush with replaceable heads
7. Plastic wrap, Foil, Ziplocs → Tupperware, Fabric Pouches, Beeswax Wrap
8. Paper Towels, Napkins → Washcloths, Cloth Napkins
9. Water Bottles → Brita Filter or Tap Water
10. Straws → Bamboo or Metal straws
11. Cutlery → Bamboo cutlery goes well with straws in a zero waste kit!
12. Menstrual Products → Period Underwear, Menstrual Cups
Replace items that come in lots of packaging with ones that have none, less, or biodegradable packaging.
1. Unpackaged shampoo/conditioner bars can replace liquid shampoo with a bottle
2. Cardboard dispensers biodegrade whereas plastic dispensers don’t
Buy high quality, less often.
Borrow items if you only need them once or twice
Buy in bulk for items that last
1. Laundry Detergent
2. Cleaning products
3. Pasta
4. Rice

Reuse:

Reuse items you have lying around the house
1. If you forget your reusable bags at the store and need grocery bags, reuse them as small bin liners or to pick up after a pet.
Buy items secondhand
1. Clothing
2. Furniture
3. Dishware
4. Electronics (buy refurbished)
Donate unused items to secondhand shops
1. See bullets for #2
Repair broken items rather than recycling them or throwing them away
1. Repair Cafes are places where experts can help people to learn how to fix their own items or help to fix them. Look online to find one near you!

And finally, if all else fails, recycle whatever you are unable to cut down on or reuse.

In a blog post like this, we would be at fault if we didn’t mention the privileged nature of individual action. Many sustainable tips include buying a reusable item that is much more expensive than a single use product would be. While, in the long run, these switches can save some people money, the upfront cost may be too much for others. If you happen to be fortunate enough to be able to afford all these tips, please consider also donating money or a box of these reusable items to a shelter or to a charity of your choice.