Nicholas Negroponte Quotes

I was brought up to reuse things.

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

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.

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.

Nothing is wasted.

We prefer synthetic rather than natural materials. Natural products are almost too valuable. Wood is much harder to produce than metal. And metal is recyclable, while wood isn't.

If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.

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

Sometimes I worry about the amount of paper I waste.

I have a company, and I've got to think about that. I'm trying to do my best there, and that's a much harder task. We recycle as much as possible, and we conserve. But I've always been one to save everything - I even walk up stairs on the very inside or the very outside to not wear out the tread.

I can never waste water. If I cannot drink it I will use it to water the plants and I will never waste food. If it is inedible it goes on the compost heap.

There are two ways to be rich: to have more or need less. It's estimated that we squander about 30 percent of our energy leaving the lights on, the refrigerator door open, and so on. Then there is the enormous amount of food that we expend huge amounts of energy to raise and then throw away.

We can no longer throw our waste away because there is no away.

In theory, recycling poop is the perfect solution to the one truly unavoidable byproduct of human civilization.

People mean well. But there is an unintended consequence of giving people bigger recycling bins and more opportunities to recycle—soon they want to recycle everything.

Designers must be increasingly sensitive to our Earth's dwindling resources. It is our responsibility.

My fiance likes drawing on napkins, which I save. I'm always scared I'll get caught taking a linen napkin from a restaurant!

It's funny: being green to me was ingrained because my parents were always trying to save money, save water, turn off the lights, or arrange a carpool. I don't think my parents even know what it means to be green, but they were.

If recycling is the future, then we must focus our efforts on mitigating negative impacts to our community while protecting our environment.

Restaurants should be forced to recycle their leftovers for animal consumption - and should create fewer leftovers in the first place.

There is no 'recycle too much.' That's an oxymoron.

I don't like wasting food.

What I learned being a young child was respect for food. Don't throw anything away.

Most of us have heard the saying, 'Cleanliness is next to godliness.' That's a sentiment I value, but another virtue has inspired me to revise that saying. As far as I'm concerned, what's next to godliness is resourcefulness.

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