“You don’t have to make a lot of changes at once, and in fact I don’t recommend that you do. Using up what you already have and slowly transitioning to different habits is far more sustainable, both for the planet and for your sanity” – Emma Walmsley on Small Footprints, Big Adventures

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Refuse

• Magazines and similar subscriptions can create a significant amount of paper waste; subscribing to these sparingly—or ideally online—can reduce waste.
• Single-use, synthetic items are easy to come by in many households. When possible, purchasing similar items made from paper, wood, glass, or other more natural materials can reduce the impact of any waste created.

Reduce

• As a simple means of reducing e-waste, ZeroWaste.com recommends a switch to rechargeable batteries, rather than single-life ones.
• ZeroWaste.com also recommends going paperless (using the cloud or digital copies, for example) and reducing printing as means to decrease waste.

Reuse

• Grocery bags, coffee cups, lunch boxes—and many other items—have reusable versions available for purchase. In the long term, these items tend to be environmentally beneficial compared to single-use alternatives.

Recycle

• As a starting point to deal with any challenging type of waste, consult the Rice County Waste Wizard. This resource provides guidance for proper disposal.
• With goods that you are unsure how to dispose of (excluding batteries and other hazardous waste, for which the Waste Wizard is a wise starting point), the general saying is true: when in doubt, throw it out.
  • It is typically wiser to follow this approach and avoid ‘wish cycling,’ whereby waste streams are contaminated.

• With common home goods, a share of general rules is valuable to follow. For a complete list of what DSI will recycle, please consult their website.
  • The following rules are specifically listed on this site:

1. Do not bag recyclables and no garbage
2. No plastic bags or plastic wrap
3. No food or liquid
4. No clothing or linens
5. No tanglers
6. No batteries

• Additionally, several other guidelines are important to consider
  • Rinse bottles, cans, and allowed plastics before recycling them.
  • Shredded paper should not be directly put into the recycling. These tiny pieces can easily be blown by the wind and create litter. Recycling facilities may require they be put into a paper bag before recycling
• Greasy cardboard pizza boxes and wet or moldy paper products cannot be recycled.

Compost

• Organic waste that ends up in landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 84 times greater than carbon dioxide. Hence, signing up for Northfield Curbside Compost is a valuable step to lower your environmental impact.