How you can be sustainable this holiday season

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The holiday season often sees a great deal of wasted food, plastic and cardboard, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

There are a variety of ways in which people can not only reduce the amount of waste created but also reuse certain items multiple times before recycling them.

Ryan Smith, CEO of Recyclops, recommends not using plastic bags at the grocery store. Instead, use reusable grocery bags. Another suggestion was asking Amazon to ship all of your packages together to reduce plastic and cardboard waste.

“Simple things like, you know, using reusing takeout containers, buying, buying nice Tupperware that you can reuse and it’s going to work well, not buying plastic water bottle like, you know, single use plastic water bottles when you can, you know, just refill a water bottle. Some recycling is definitely a necessary and important, and I don’t it’s hard to imagine a place where we can kind of live without it, but we can do a lot to avoid the need to recycle,” Smith said.

Another big issue is the amount of food waste that accrues during the holiday season. The good news is, it is all compostable, even things like the turkey carcass, says Compost Bowling Green owner Charlie O’Connell. The WKU Farm-based operation helps residents keep the nutrients in the soil that would otherwise go to a landfill.

“If you have a garden or even houseplants, if you make the product correctly, you can add it to your garden and houseplants to to make them healthier and further, you know, it makes your soil healthy, helps them produce healthy plants. Those are the big benefits to homeowners,” O’Connell said.

Composting can be easy and typically has a low startup cost, especially if you already have a yard. If you are interested in learning more about either of these companies visit compostbg.com and recyclops.com.