When I was younger, I used to go over to my friend’s house after school some days. Whenever we got thirsty, her mom would pull out a couple of water bottles for us. Their family would go through a pack of Costco water bottles every week. Of course, not wanting to waste too much, they would recycle all their water bottles. After all , water bottles are convenient and not too expensive, and they recycled the bottles, so no harm done, right?

    Wrong. What people don’t realize is that it’s not enough to just recycle and reuse. We always seem to forget the third “re”—reduce. While it’s very important to recycle and reuse everything we can, this wouldn’t be as necessary if we didn’t waste as much in the first place. If we want to leave this world in decent shape for the next generation, we need to start reducing the amount of garbage and waste we produce.

    My old elementary school has an annual walkathon in the spring, and it can get pretty hot in the afternoon, so the school provides water. The kids grab a cup as they walk by, and toss it when it’s empty. By the end of the event, the trash cans are overflowing with plastic cups.

    Garbage is piling up in our landfills. At this rate, one day we will have nowhere to put our trash. Even space is already littered with remnants of satellites. What kind of world are we going to leave our children? Our grandchildren? The only way to stop the amount of garbage from increasing is to stop making garbage—the sooner the better. It’s really hot as hard as it sound, and helpful tips appear everywhere from school newsletters to government websites. We all need to do our pat in reducing our waste.

    In our family, we try to recycle everything possible, and our giant recycle bin fills up pretty quickly. Cans, bottles, card board- we recycle anything we can. We reuse, too- I had a plastic reusable lunch bag that I brought every day to school until it was so holey my lunch was in danger of galling out. Only then did I throw it away.

    However, even I realize that this is not enough. Recycling a soda can does not completely cancel out the effects on nature produced when the soda can was made. It took energy to make the can, and it will take energy to turn the recycled can into something useful. We have to remember that energy means fuel, like gas or oil. Recycling is helpful, but not good enough if we can do more. Recycling the amount of waste we produce by suing fewer wasteful products is the best way to stop making trash that overflows our landfills.

    Well, what does this all mean for us in our daily lives? The answer is simple: just a few easy changes can make our world a better place. Don’t use white paper for rough drafts when you can point on the back of old flyers. Don’t throw away old toys- donate them or sell them. Don’t use paper plates when it only takes a little bit more work to wash china ones. If everyone in the U.S. produced one less pound of garbage a year, we would save over 155 thousand tons of garbage per year. Recycling is good. Reusing is good. But the best way to make an impact is to not make waste at all. So next time you go grocery shopping, pass right by those Arrowhead water bottles and walk towards a better world and a brighter future.