Do the Reuse Challenge

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Aladdin. All opinions are 100% mine.

Aladdin has a challenge for you. - Make a 30-day commitment to give up disposable paper cups, water bottles, or food containers.  By making small, easy changes in our everyday routine and using reusable products, we can make a big impact in our lives, our community, and the world.  Think you can do it?  Need some good reasons why you should do it?

• Seven million barrels of oil are used to produce the disposable bottles Americans go through in one year.
• In the United States, 50 billion disposable water bottles are consumed per year; 137,000 per day; 1,585 per second.
• It costs about $165 a year to make drip coffee at home versus $636 to buy drip coffee at your local café.
• Unless we change our habits, 23 billion paper coffee cups will be thrown out in 2010.
• Nine dollars will generally cover a decent lunch out. If you buy rather than pack a lunch five days a week, you shell out about $2,350 a year.

I would think that last one would be reason enough - but then I'm just cheap!  Same with the coffee.  And disposable water bottles?  I am WAY too cheap for that.  I know I'm saving a ton of money by using a water filter on my kitchen faucet and refilling my own re-usable water bottle, not to mention not having my recycle bin uneccesarily overflowing with empty plastic bottles.

This challenge sounds pretty much like my everyday life, doesn't it? But there are a lot of people out there throwing away a lot of things and filling up our landfills.  I have often wondered what people are throwing away when I see their overflowing toters on trash day.  We rarely get ours even close to full!

Even though I'm already pretty good at avoiding disposable items, there are always things I can improve.  For instance, while I got Jeffrey to start taking his lunch to work instead of going out for lunch shortly after we were married, I am still packing his sandwiches and carrot sticks in plastic sandwich bags.

Anyway, enough about me.  Do you think you're ready to accept the Do The Reuse Challenge?  There are several challenges you can get involved in.  Accept one or accept them all and see how making one small change can save you some cash, save our planet, and lead to a healthier you.  Everyone’s welcome to participate (the more, the better!), and 9 families will be blogging about their experience on the Aladdin website.  Won't you join in?

In addition, when you accept one of the Do the Reuse Challenges you’ll be able to get discounts and free shipping on selected Aladdin products through their website, www.shopaladdin-pmi.com - which means you can save even more money!  Oh yes, I'm all about the saving of the money.  (*grin)  Also be sure to Like Aladdin on Facebook to keep up with the Challenge, interact with others who are participating, get some great ideas, and some savings codes just for fans.