The Ultimate Green Family

Crisp packages and coloured plastic fill the bin to the top. It is so full that the lid doesn’t fit on top! But the Strauss family, whose bin is so nasty and full of rubbish, are extremely proud. Why? Because they work hard and recycle their rubbish all year! They have reduced their rubbish for the whole down to one bin.

Upon reading some articles about plastic bags and how they cause pollution and harm sea creatures, Richard and Rachelle Strauss and their daughter Veronica decided to quit using plastic bags completely. Now they reuse their plastic bags when they go shopping. They recycle and reuse almost everything; plastic bottles, glass bottles, paper, cardboard, cans. One of their rules is that they don’t buy anything that cannot be recycled. For instance, they prefer to buy toothpaste in aluminium tubes, as these can be recycled. And they never waste their food – they either eat the leftovers or use them to make compost.

The biggest challenge they now face is what to do with crisp packages and sweet wrappers. They are impossible to recycle, but Verona loves them. Their solution is to buy the biggest packages so that it lasts for at least a week.

The family have a website where they are keeping a record of their lifestyle. They hope more and more people will read and be conscious about reuse and recycling.