Yesterday, we did some rather green and eco-friendly things, no not by planting a tree yet, but by making some decisions to recycle and using eco-friendly products. Firstly, we went to Ikea to search for Recycling bins for the home.
We bought this very affordable DIMPA waste sorting bin for RM46.
There are many nicer ones, but they come with a crazy price tag. This one is great as it has its own stand, and is divided into 3 compartments. We use it for sorting plastic bottles, cardboard and milk cartons. Sure it’s not enough for everything, but at least it takes care of the bigger stuffs. We are also collecting magazines and newspapers for recycling, batteries, mix paper, plastic bags and whatever recyclable things. So what causes this motivation?
This innovative site! Recycle and Reward. This is basically a service that rewards you in points for everything you recycle, and then with the points you can redeem gifts, vouchers etc, just like the good old bonuslink system. However, I love this system because it motivates people to recycle, to value their trash, like what we’re doing now. Else we used to throw out our plastic bottles, milk cartons etc on a daily basis. Now we keep them and send them for recycling. Also, through this system, recycling is very convenient. All we need to do is collect enough recyclable stuffs, give them a call and they will come and collect it, and give us the points. There are different points per kg for different categories of items. Plus the redemption gifts are very good items, including iPods and PSPs.
Well, after getting our recycling bin and a few toys for Josiah, we head of to Desa Parkcity for the Green Event. We’ve never been there, so were really pleasantly surprised at how beautiful the landscaping is. We were greeted on entrance by a beautiful outdoor playground with some crazy slides that are not available in most of our housing area’s playground.
We love the beautiful lake with pathways for joggers, strollers, and even bikers. At the carpark, lots of families were hanging out and playing with kites, at the lake, there were so many people walking their pedigree dogs. Obviously, this is like upper middle class group of people. But the developers of this township definitely knew how to build a nice family oriented park. I’m sure as well they pay an exorbitant maintenance fee here, well if only all townships look like this one, without the crazy fees. It does feel a little like we were not in Malaysia while we were there.
Then we proceeded to the Waterfront and the Green Event Fair, specifically to the Tiny Tapir’s stall. They were selling this package of 4 items worth RM156 at only RM99. The items consist of:
1) 1 L Liquitainer
This is a very high quality durable safe plastic bottle that can be folded flat. Great for travelling! It claims to be self cleaning and doesn’t make water go ‘bad’ and taste funny, such as those in BROS bottles. Of course, it’s completely BPA free.
2) Onya Weigh
I knew of reusable shopping bags, but have never heard of Onya Weigh. It is basically a very small pouch with the hook, and in it are 8 pieces of mesh pouches. I bought it for use with buying fruits and vege at the hypermarket, coz when you buy fruits, you still need to use those transparent plastic bags to store and bring them to the weighing counter. With Onya weighs, which are reusable and breathable, I can totally eliminate transparent plastic bags (except for buying fish!) and fruits that can ‘breathe’ through it will last longer too. When I bring it home, I can just wash the fruits in the Onya mesh bags, before storing it. The mesh bags can even be used for doing laundry! That’s how tough they are.
I bought an Envirosax bag before, but I can’t find it in the house. The truth is I have quite a few shopping bags, but they are all bulky and I can’t store them in my handbag. So the Rume bags, mini and regular are just great coz they can be folded very tiny and rolled together with some velcro tape. Plus it doesn’t hurt that they look real good, with designer prints and all. They are also very durable and can hold up to 23kg of items. I did try shopping for milk cartons and using this, no problem at all. The same can’t be said of those generic cheap bags available in most hypermarkets. They might just tear.
So that’s our Green shopping for the day. There’s still a long way to go. But if everyone decides to only recycle Plastic alone, it would make a huge difference to this Earth. Start little, but start today.
hey, just read ur comment. So, you went ahead and bought the Dimpa. Good for U! First time heard about the Recycle and Reward , though. Great motivation to start recycle now :))
hehe…i was looking at yur pretty bag just now so now i know where u got it!