Doing our little part

Growing up, my parents, dad especially have always taught us all to recycle. We would take turns to send old newspapers to the storeroom and on weekends, we had people come to our house to collect the newspapers for recycling. They would come on motorbikes and sometimes a van or small lorry would come and collect. Back then I didn't know the value and meaning of recycling because we get so little out of a huge pile of old newspapers and magazines. I thought it was not worth it. Why not just throw them out? Why the extra work and effort to collect, which takes space for a few ringgit?

Now that I am all grown up, I am so grateful to my parents for teaching and instilling this good habit in me and now that I am living on my own, I keep on this habit. I would collect whatever that are recyclable in one huge laundry bag. You know, the transparent laundry bag you get when you send your clothes for dry cleaning. In a way, I am reusing that bag rather than using a fresh garbage bag. I put the plastic bag in a corner of my kitchen and would put anything and everything that are recyclable. Within a month or so, the plastic bag can easily be filled with all sorts of things from shampoo bottles to sardine cans, from coffee bean cups to uht milk packet. I can't believe the amount of things that are collected in my house within a month considering there are only 3 of us.

Of course I had to get hubby to play his part too. When the plastic bag is full, I would get him to send to one of the many recycling bins that can be found all over the place like the one in the picture below. I am so glad that there are so many of this bins scattered all around my neighborhood, in fact there's one near my office. The best part is, these recycling bins are for charity so not only we are doing our part for the environment, we are also doing our part for those in need. It takes so little effort to reuse and recycle and I feel so good everytime we dump our recyclables in one of these bins.

What about you? Do you recycle? If not, it's never too late to start! Do your part now, for the future, for the environment, for those in need and for Mother Earth.

P/S: Please ensure you rinse out the bottles, cans, cups etc before recycling. Jangan la asal boleh, OK?