Recycle and Reuse

My daughter's grade school is having a fund raiser that involves the kids bringing cans and plastic bottles to the school for recycling. The parents are driving up in their SUV's and bringing out enormous and I mean HUGE bags of plastic water bottles and soda cans. We don't have any thing to contribute and it makes me feel strange, like I am not helping our school. But the reality is that I don't buy anything like that - we don't drink sodas in our house and I refuse to buy bottled water. My 7 year old said that it was too bad that we couldn't take wine bottles to the recycling drive because then we would be in the money! The alternative to recycling is to not purchase in the first place and/or reuse something thereby avoiding the need to recycle.

LEED-CI credit 3.3 is all about this concept. Avoid recycling by reusing. The intent is to reuse building products and materials in order to reduce demand for virgin materials and reduce waste, thereby reducing impacts associated with the extraction and processing of virgin resources. The requirement is to use salvaged, refurbished or used furniture and furnishings for 30% of the total furniture and furnishings budget.

The wording of the credit comes into play as you are looking for 30% of the total furniture/furnishings budget. There are many cost studies that address the price difference of reusing and refurbishing furniture vs. buying new furniture. But again, what is that actual cost? Environmental impact, landfill, energy to manufacture and transport etc. Clearly, it seems that reusing existing products is better environmentally then buying new.