What You Can Do

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are ideas that you should do in order. The less waste there is to begin with, the less there is that needs to be disposed of responsibly.

Here are some ideas for what you can do:

1. Choose wisely when pur­chas­ing: Buy the best qual­ity you can, repair and main­tain items, and try to buy used or refur­bished instead of new.
2. Sell, give away or donate reusable items instead of throw­ing them away.
3. Shop with reusable shop­ping bags.
4. Avoid over-packaged prod­ucts and choose prod­ucts with recy­cled content.
5. Drink tap water or fil­tered water from reusable bot­tles rather than bot­tled water.
6. Use reusable dishes and uten­sils and cloth tow­els and nap­kins instead of single-use products.
7. Avoid wast­ing food — nation­ally, about 40% of the food we pur­chase winds up in a landfill.
8. Can­cel unwanted sub­scrip­tions and opt out of junk-mail.
9. Encour­age your work­place to start a recy­cling pro­gram if there isn’t one in place already.
10. Par­tic­i­pate in Howard County’s curb­side recy­cling pro­gram (HowardCountyRecycles.org) and stay up to date on new recy­clable mate­ri­als.

Also visit the other pages in the Recycling & Waste section of this website to learn more about Residential Recycling, Business Recycling and Composting.

Litter continues to be a problem that vexes us all. Many people go out of their way to pick up litter in their neighborhoods and in public spaces. Businesses spend millions of dollars every year cleaning up parking lots. You can help by setting a good example of not littering and participating in volunteer efforts listed on the Litter Cleanups page.

Green Events for Organizations

Events provide an especially good opportunity to implement waste reduction practices. While events are fun, they produce large amounts of waste that often go towards the landfills – including food scraps, food ware, paper, cardboard, and other materials that could otherwise be recycled. Promoting zero waste practices at events can help promote a culture of sustainability that can help reduce the amount of waste that we produce, and therefore the amount of pollution and greenhouse gases that we emit. 

Let’s Go Zero Waste, A Guidebook for Organizations on Zero Waste Events, was created by Chesapeake Conservation & Climate Corps member Vanessa Holloway during her tenure with the Howard County Office of Community Sustainability. The step-by-step guide offers tips on conducting a waste audit, practical ways to reduce waste at events, community resources for waste reduction, and case studies of Howard County nonprofits that have had successful waste reduction efforts.