Residents requested to reduce, reuse, recycle
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

NORTHBRUNSWICK- In addition to a New Year's resolution of shrinking your waistline, the township Environmental Commission is asking residents to shrink their "waste-line" by reducing, reusing and recycling.

"The arrival of a new year offers residents ofNorth Brunswick Township the opportunity to start 2008with not only a clean slate, but also a green slate," said commission Chairman Mark Hommer. "Many peoplemake a perennialNewYear's resolution to shed excess pounds, but January is also a good time to shrink the whole household's impact on the environment by recycling unused belongings and reducing the amount of waste we generate."

The amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.4 pounds per day over the past 35 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To prevent waste, Hommer suggested finding new uses for unwanted items that get stored away. For example, he recommended selling unwanted belongings on eBay, holding a garage sale or taking them to a church sale or charity thrift shop so someone else can enjoy them.

Other examples of reuse include using empty jars or containers to store leftover food or to organize small items such as sewing notions or nails and bolts; carrying a durable coffeemug instead of using throwaway paper ones; using washable cloth paper towels and napkins; buying grains, beans and pasta in bulk and storing themin reusable containers; using reusable bags when shopping; and refilling water bottles instead of buying new ones.

"When there's no choice but to discard an item, take advantage of all recycling options so that the raw materials can be recovered and used to make other products," Hommer said. "Make 'reduce, reuse and recycle' your watchwords for 2008, and you'll be well on your way to a greener, more sustainable new year. When you waste less, you are not only lightening the load on landfills, you are also saving the energy and other natural resources that would be consumed throughout the product's life cycle, fromthe extraction and transporting of raw materials to processing, manufacturing, packaging, retailing the product and getting it to your house."