Monday 3Rs

I love the idea of reduce, reuse and recycle (3Rs) and I wish I could do more everyday. Living in Japan means separating your burnable from nonburnable into different colour coded trash bags (different for every state - available at the local store), washing and drying milk cartons, aluminium cans, tins, PET bottles and polystyrene packs before recycling. Taking out your trash is not something you do without proper planning here in Japan, first you are allocated a garbage station according to your address, then you are given an annual garbage collection calender that you have to adhere to. For example, you take out your burnable trash only on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Nonburnable on Wednesdays, plastic items only to be taken out on Fridays. Bulk items i.e sofa, microwave, etc that cannot fit into the colour coded trash bags need to be handled separately - buy a special ticket/coupon and call the 'special' collecting team to make appointment to come and collect your bulk items, or better still, if they are still usable try selling them to the many recycling shops in your town.

I imagine housewives around Japan diligently spending minutes and hours or their day thinking and sorting garbage in their houses but coming to think of it children in nursery schools are trained to understand the concept of separating the burnable from nonburnable from when they start walking. Imagine growing up with with that notion of recycling carved in your brain, after a while it becomes a routine and you do it out of habit.

Growing up in Malaysia, over the last 10 years or so, we have started hearing and seeing so many recycling campaigns, booths advertisement with catchy jingle tunes created to educate Malaysian about the importance of recycling, but we still only have 1 trash can in the kitchen in my mother's house where we always forget to not throw cans and PET bottles or plastic in it.

I try my best to apply the 3Rs in our daily lives, but my favourite has to be REFASHIONING *wink*

I got this adult size sweater from a friend


Took the sides in and removed the sleeves and turn it into a vest.

Used my mounting scrap and some old sweater from my stash to make this scarf.
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