Here I have more 3R efforts that we practiced at our home during January. Although there are 5Rs and even 6Rs of waste management, we started with the easiest, which is 3R. Though there are many resources online for learning about the 3Rs, green lifestyle, and relevant ideas,I thought of sharing a roundup every month as this post can inspire the readers of this blog to be more considerate of the environment with small steps.
Green Learning & Awareness
To spend an eco-friendly lifestyle, we should continue learning. Green awareness is important as every simple step counts. In this blog, I focus more on sharing eco-friendly ideas for families with young children. When children start valuing mother earth and society, the future will be a better place for everyone to live in harmony.
This month, the Chinese New Year was celebrated around the world by the Chinese community, and Pongal Festival was celebrated by the Indian community. We engaged in different celebrating activities and it was a great opportunity to learn and appreciate other cultures.
During the Chinese New year holiday weekend, we travelled to Desaru in Malaysia and spent our time at Lotus Desaru Beach Resort & Spa. The stay was comfortable with different family and kid-friendly activities. More than that, this resort has paid special attention to green efforts. We could find different signs and slogans that encourage guests to save energy, water, and even food. It was great that I could show those signs to our child and we tried practicing those to make it an eco-friendly holiday as much as possible.
We found the above sign in the restaurant where we had our breakfast buffet at Lotus Desaru Resort. It was good advice and my son ate everything on his plate without wasting food. We were sitting at a table where the sign was displayed. Not only kids, but this reminder is also for everyone not to waste food,specially when you enjoy a buffet meal. 🙂
Among different signs, above is found in our room that reminds guests to switch off the lights and to save energy.
Our holiday and visit to the beach were full of fun activities. Other than that, we, especially our son could see mangroves and plants that are grown in the coastal line. Once he did a presentation on the ‘protection of mangroves‘ to his peers at the school. Therefore, this trip was great for him to polish his knowledge of mangroves and how mangroves protect the coastal line.
With the above learning activities and experiences, below are some of the green efforts at our home that are worth mentioning. Every simple act counts! 🙂
Reduce: Some of our January Reduce efforts
We bought our fridge back in 2008 and it was working fine until recently. But, last year, from time to time we experienced different signs although the fridge was working. Sometimes I found the fridge is not cold enough. But, it was fine in a day or two. There were times, the fridge was loud. We also noticed water in some areas inside the fridge. These sounds indicated to us that the fridge is not working in an efficient condition. We used this fridge for nearly 15 years. We thought it is the right time to go for a new fridge.
Then, we started this New Year by buying a new fridge. It is an eco-friendly fridge and the energy efficiency rating is 3 stars which is good. An eco-friendly fridge is designed in a way to minimize electricity usage for its functioning. According to the manufacturer, the annual energy cost for this new eco-friendly fridge is $76.
The dealer helped us in disposing of the old fridge after they delivered the new fridge. We hope this step will help in reducing our electricity bill each month which is good for our monthly expenses. On the other hand, we had a good experience while shopping for a new fridge. I learned how to choose a fridge wisely keeping energy consumption to the minimum.
Reuse: Some of our January Reuse efforts
Among the different Reuse activities at our home, I want to mention in this post how we reuse plastic grocery bags. While we try to avoid plastic bags as much as possible by bringing our own bags for shopping, it is not possible to completely stay away from these grocery bags. Therefore I reuse those grocery bags for different purposes. Mainly I use these bags for lining the trash can in the pantry.
I neatly fold the bags when I receive those and store the bags neatly without giving them much space in the pantry. If you like to know how to fold a grocery bag, I’ve shared a post before on my food blog. Please read it here.
Recycle: Some of our January Recycle efforts
The BlooBox we collected last month is handy as a recycling box. It has a place in a corner of our kitchen and we collect recyclable items in it. From time to time we dispose of the collected items to recycle bins. In this way, we could be free of some clutter that is recyclable.
I could clear some magazines and used workbooks through the door collectors.
These are some of our notable Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle efforts that we practiced during January. How about you? What are some efforts that you practice at home to save our environment? Do you like to live a green lifestyle?
Below are some previous posts if you missed reading them.
- Green Mom Blogger in Singapore : My New Year Resolution
- Ideas to Help Children Connect with Nature
- CleanPod in Singapore : We Spotted One!
- Book Exchange Corner at the Public Library : Reuse Your Used Books
- Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products from Sparks Cleantech #Review
**Check the link parties that I like to join.
Our old fridge was sixteen years old and although it was still working ok we decided to swap it for a more energy efficient one. It’s wonderful how the technology has moved on since we bought the old one 🙂
#MMBC
Yes,nowadays there are energy efficient fridges that saves both energy and also our money from utility bills 🙂
Although I an here to share your T Tuesday post, this caught my eye. I was born on Earth Day, and I recycle everything possible. I bring my bags anywhere the grocery store doesn’t offer bags, but those that do, I save the plastic bags because I know that someday I will have to BUY plastic bags in which to place my trash and used litter. For me, trash is used litter. I tried to combine it with soil in my garden, but I got a terrible mess that turned to near concrete after awhile. To me, trash is also a pizza box that has sauce on it, or a plastic wrapper/covering from a brick of cheese that would take more water to clean than it is worth. Sometimes we have to weight the cost of water to wash the piece than it is to pitch it. I live in an area where water is a premium. Thanks for this informative post.
This is great to hear. There are so many different suggestions in your comment that we all can apply to our daily lives and to help protect this world. Thanks for sharing this comment. It is great that I meet likeminded people through blog posts.
Have a great day!