Go green with ‘3 Rs’ Published April 6, 2009 By Chief Master Sgt. Ron Kichton 87th Aerospace Medicine Squadron McGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. -- Recycling is the best way to save the environment, right? To see recycle bins and dumpsters full of plastic bottles and paper should fill us with just as much pride in accomplishment, right? After all, the installation focuses on three enduring themes: mission excellence, developing leaders and preserving resources, so by recycling the goal is being met, right? Not quite. Having not long ago earned my Master of Science in Environmental Management (yes, enlisted you can get a master's -- just stick to it), recycling is the third option, ahead only of throwing things in the trash. The three "Rs" of environmental order of importance are: Reduce, Reuse or Recycle. America in general is a nation of waste; we buy more and throw away more than any other country in the world, so opportunities certainly exist for improvement. To offer some ideas on how to meet the primary goal of reducing, just look again at the enduring themes -- the first one of mission excellence. How many thousands of pounds of paper go into the "blue bins" every year because the administrative paperwork was not accomplished "excellently" the first time (or the second or third...?) Reviewing performance reports, decorations, and awards alone I see stacks of redos because the checklist was not followed, resulting in wasted paper. When we had to do these things on typewriters, I can say that less paperwork was generated. Or personnel printing out an entire AFI for information on one page or to study for a few weeks, then pitching it when the file can be burned to a CD instead. To turn to another area of recycling overdone, the second biggest I see is bottles. As a bioenvironmental engineering manager, over the past 20 years I've collected drinking water samples at 12 bases to determine quality and in every instance the water was fine to drink yet at nearly every installation, there would be those who believed that "good" drinking water could only be obtained in a bottle, not from a spigot. The regulations for water quality are more stringent for tap water than bottled water and having conducted visits, I have seen at times the water filling the bottles is the same water that goes to the distribution system. Yet, the bins stuffed to overflow with plastic bottles indicate that despite putting out a consumer confidence report each year on water testing on the base system, drink one and "pitch it" remains a popular practice. Following the environmental hierarchy, when you can't reduce totally than reuse -- this means to use the same item again for its original purpose. With the examples I've given, we used to have the practice in TAC of using "creek paper." I don't know where the term originated, but basically if a paper is going to be another draft, then use the blank side of a previously used paper and slash an "X" on the side to not be referred to. That way, at least both sides of the paper are being used before recycling, reducing up to half! For bottled water, if it's just sometimes more convenient to have a bottle instead of trying to find a fountain, when it's empty, instead of immediately recycling, reuse by filling with tap water and putting it in the fridge for its next use. It's ok, really. If it comes down to the third option of recycling, where the product is broken down to primary materials and rebuilt, taking energy and only recovering a percentage of material, certainly get the product to the correct recycling container instead of the normal trash can 10 feet closer. These are just a couple of ideas -- there are many more I'm confident you can think of now that you have a roadmap. Preserving resources and the environment is everyone's responsibility and to use an old phrase, make it Earth Day (April 22) every day and while the public knows we are Airmen warriors, let's show them we can be "environmental warriors," too!