Simple Suggestion # 158... Remember your seven Rs

A poster appeared on the Master Composter/Recycler page this morning, courtesy of Gerda, and her sharing has spurred this moodling... I was intrigued -- some of it I could guess the meaning, but other bits I wasn't sure (Recusar??) So I decided to see if I could figure it out, simply because I'm always interested in peoples' takes on reducing, reusing, and recycling. I hadn't seen a poster about seven Rs before.

After an hour of working on it, I'm guessing that because it's written in Portuguese, it might originate in Brazil, where there seems to be a lot of awareness about environmental issues and the need to live sustainably. Here's how it looks once translated to the best of my ability:

It's an excellent list, all in all. The only one that deserves a bit more consideration is #4 -- reuse. If we're living as sustainably as possible, of course it's important to reuse everything we can, but I would also caution against reusing things to make more "stuff" that isn't useful, unless you're in kindergarten. There are plenty of crafty websites out there that encourage the reuse of all sorts of items to make planters and wall hangings (and cute little knick knacks out of toilet paper rolls...) but we also need to remember that we probably shouldn't make more than we can use, or our psyches will be cluttered with too much stuff. Voluntary Simplicity is about living with just enough.

Other than that, it's definitely a list worth remembering...

For more Simple Suggestions, try here.