we all reuse

Reuse is important because at the same time that it confronts the challenges of waste reduction, the resulting products brighten our lives and support a productive economy.

• Reuse keeps goods and materials out of the waste stream
• Reuse reduces the need for raw materials and packaging
• Reuse preserves the "embodied energy" that was originally used to manufacture an item
• Reuse reduces the strain on valuable resources, such as fuel, wood and water, and helps safeguard the environment
• Reuse creates less air and water pollution than making a new item or recycling
• Reuse results in less dangerous waste
• Reuse often saves the manufacturer, and therefore the customer, money
• Reuse generates new business and employment opportunities for both small entrepreneurs and large enterprises
• Reuse creates affordable and attractive items

Designers can also help by creating products that are easy to repair, or have a modular design where parts can be replaced as they wear out.

We believe that hand in hand, reuse and sustainable design are the best way to reduce our impact on the earth's dwindling resources and to dramatically cut our energy use.

In the messages sent out by public bodies, NGO's and green businesses, reusing is often confused with recycling, but they are really quite different.

Reuse in the broadest sense means any activity that lengthens the life of an item - redistribution, repairing or remodeling.

Recycling is more accurately the mechanical or chemical reprocessing of an unwanted item into a new raw material for use in a new product - laudable but much more energy consuming.

Goods collected from a kerbside or depot are taken to a central plant to be reprocessed into new 'recyclates' and then shipped to factories to be remade into mass produced new items.

Though glass, textile or paper waste may be processed within a community or region, a humble PC casing or shampoo bottle may travel half way across the world and back. The carbon footprint of recycling can be almost as heavy as that from goods made from raw materials.

Many products that are created through reuse are described as recycled, and so the public are unaware of how the raw materials were sourced, and how green this can make the product.

Perhaps its time to change this - and help all of use choose reuse when we buy.