at la casa verde we believe reducing, reusing and recycling (in that order) is key to living sustainably.
we reduce by:
- not using any unsustainable materials, e.g. jungle hardwood, endangered animal products etc…
- avoiding products with packaging which cannot be reused or recycled
- using (and encouraging our guests to use) the available reusable carry bags and plastic containers when shopping and to say ‘no thanks’ to the endless offering of plastic bags – the lovely supermarket workers think we’re strange when bulk filling our re-usable plastic containers and carrying them in our backpacks…but they’re getting the jist of it now
- offering free drinking water refills to our guests so they don’t need to keep buying plastic water bottles
- encouraging guests to ‘take nothing but photos and leave nothing but (light) footprints’ on their journeys
we reuse:
- paper/cardboard and turn it into interesting (probably not award winning) artwork, garden mulch and window/mirror cleaners
- glass bottles to create interesting windows and (once we’ve drank enough wine) a glass bottle green house
- plastic containers to store food or grow new seedlings
- food scraps (composted or fed to our neighbours’ animals), water and human waste (through our septic system) on the property to make the garden even more luscious.
we recycle by:
- rubbish is washed and separated into 5 bins in the kitchen – glass, aluminium, paper, food scraps and non-reusable or unrecyclable plastic (we are proud to say this is our smallest bin and only needs emptying every couple of months – amounting to very little waste)
- aluminium is sold (yes, you can make a little money from recycling aluminium here – it’s not a ‘get rich quick scheme’ though) to a local collector who sells it on to a recycling plant
- making recycled paper – used for our visitor book and available to buy for sending those long ‘wish you were here’ letters home
