Admit it. When sun is out and you are at your favorite campsite or cottage on lake last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time cooking a meal. Often, when vacationing, lure to purchase instant foods is strong. Unfortunately, these convenience foods often come over packaged usually including some type of plastic. As we can see when we come across trash in wilderness, plastics tend to linger longest - other than maybe glass and metal. Nothing ruins feel of a pristine, natural area more than a bunch of garbage. Numerous studies prove that tourists return to an area primarily for its cleanliness and greenery. In this era where economy has come to rely more on tourism, cleaning up is truly a benefit for community.

Imagine that if at grocery store person bagging your purchases left empty, unused spaces in each bag causing you to carry 10 instead of 5 bags out to your car then into your home. You would be investing some extra time, energy and space when it was unnecessary. Now transfer that thought to waste and recycling industry. Instead of filling a trash bag or bin with large empty spaces, we can all do some simple acts to help keep transportation costs down while reducing fossil fuel consumption and saving ourselves some time and money.

The flattening of boxes greatly increases space efficiency in a bin. This does not just apply to cardboard boxes, but also includes any paperboard (cereal or pet food) ones as well. Crushing cans before recycling is much more easily done if it is possible to remove both top and bottom lids first. Foil products are easily flattened by hand.