Wangari Maathai Quotes

Consuming less means throwing away less, while reusing things actually helps to save the planet as well as the pennies.

We need to throw away less, recycle a lot more and turn much of the rest into energy.

I was brought up to reuse things.

If you're not buying recycled products, you're not really recycling.

Even clingfilm - if it's gone over a salad bowl, take it off, use it again. I wash out carrier bags; I save brown paper from parcels. I save string; I save ribbons. I separate all my bits and pieces.

I'm mad keen on recycling because I'm worried about the next generation and where all this waste we're producing is going. It has to stop. I wash out my plastic containers and recycle envelopes, everything I possibly can.

When we unwrap presents, I tend to sit there with a bin liner trying to collect up the wrapping paper and thinking about which pieces I can reuse and which I will recycle.

Reducing and reusing take nothing more than a rethink on the way we shop, and using our imagination with the things that we might once have considered junk.

Not everything needs to be recycled.

The day we dispose of the idea of disposability will be a great one for the planet.

I'm adamant about recycling in my house, and I'm always making sure to turn off the lights.

What humans aren't good at is trying to consume less, to consume less plastic, to not be lazy.

We can't have landfills forever, and we can't ask others to accept our trash.

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

It makes a big difference to recycle. It makes a big difference to use recycled products. It makes a big difference to reuse things, to not use the paper cup - and each time you do, that's a victory.

Nothing is wasted.

The plastic bottle we're throwing away every day still stays there. And if we show that to people, then we can also promote some behavioral change.

The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse.

Benjamin Franklin said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But I'd like to add a third certainty: trash. And while some in this room might want to discuss reducing taxes, I want to talk about reducing trash.

Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.

We recycle everything in my house. I'm not into any particular organizations, but I'm doing my part and that makes me feel okay.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, and the by-product from one food can be perfect for making another.

One of my big pet peeves is single-use plastic bags. I think it's one of the stupidest ideas in the world.

Nobody likes to throw stuff away. It's just antithetical to our sense of being a person. But we're all habituated to that way of living today.

We can turn your bottles back into oil. We can burn it to make energy. Our we can put it in a landfill. There’s a green spectrum. And a cost spectrum. The most green is the most expensive.