This guest-post is brought to you by Rinnah.

Some people say that the recycling habit is hardly ever practiced in Malaysia. I used to think that was true and that we just weren’t cut out for a recycling lifestyle, but when I open my eyes and look around, I find that there are little things we can do that actually contribute up to the recycling effort.

Sort before you throw.
In my home we have a number of rubbish bags that are specially designated. One bag is for paper, another for plastic and there’s the normal rubbish that goes into a third bag. I find that it doesn’t take much effort to think about which bag to throw my rubbish into once it becomes a habit. If you think it doesn’t matter, please think again.

By doing so, you’re actually helping many things - the environment, the garbage collector and yourself. I’ve seen the workers rip open bags of rubbish on the street in front of houses to separate the papers, plastics, glass and cans. Then the rubbish gets spread out over the road and creates not only an eyesore but a stench as well.

Believe it or not, even my office cleaner can sort out the rubbish she collects before she throws it. Okay, so she mainly just divides the newspaper, paper and all other rubbish, but it’s still effort towards the recycling cause.

Image by Smoobs.

Say no to plastic bags!
Do you know that the humble plastic bag you use in daily life is actually a big threat to the environment because it doesn’t degrade easily? If you can, don’t just throw away your plastic bags. Recycle them by using them again and again. You can use ‘em to throw your rubbish or to pack things away. It would be even better if you can say no to plastic bags and support campaigns like Plastic Ain’t My Bag by We Are What We Do.

Heck, if you want to go the whole hog, as the Americans say, there’s the upmarket and classy Anya Hindmarch’s This Isn’t A Plastic Bag logo bag. I don’t believe in spending all that much for a tote bag that I could get anywhere else, but hey, if it gets you to say no to plastic bags, whatever floats your boat, yeah?

You can also support retailers who don’t voluntarily give out plastic bags and promote the use of paper/reusable bags like The Body Shop, Ikea, Tesco.

Image by ToastyKen.

Reduce paper wastage.
This applies mostly to the office worker as a lot of paper gets wasted in offices these days. As long as there’s no confidential information on the plain A4 paper you use, why not print on the back for drafts? Save a tree *grin* Paper cut up into halves and quarters make good notepaper too. And when you finally have no more use for the paper, please send it to a recycling center where you know that it will be recycled and given a new lease of life as paper again.

Image by suvajack.

These are but a fraction of the things you can do to recycle. So remember your 3Rs - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

Rinnah writes about anything and everything that strikes her fancy over at It’s all about the spin…