Tag: reduce

My sustainability resolutions

Warren TangLeave a comment

Over two months of 2010 have already gone by but there is still plenty of time to start a list of resolutions.

This year I pledge to reduce my garbage output. Right now, as a family, we put out one full bag a week of burnables and plastics each per week. When David Suzuki is said to put out only one bag a month there is definitely room for improvement by myself and everyone.

My second pledge is to start composting. Our kitchen garden would be complete if we can just make our own compost. We use commercially bought chicken manure as fertiliser right now. And learning to compost would also help my cause in achieving my first resolution.

Reduce Reuse Recycle – the order of the 3Rs according to Google

Warren Tang3 Comments

In my last post a friend commented that isn’t that the order we all know.

So I decided to put it to the test in Google.

In Google if you quotation marks ” ” around a search term it returns the results as if the separate words were one word. So by putting in every possible combination of ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’ and ‘recycle’ I should get a good idea of how the English speaking world orders them. Below is the result:

Interestingly, the absolute opposite order of ‘Recycle Reuse Reduce’ came in 1st but its “pair” starting with ‘recycle’ (Recycle, Reduce, Reuse) came in last. The proper order of Reduce Reuse Recycle is ranked 4th of six. The order and number of hits are certainly a mixed bag with some reaching only low 5 digits. Well worth looking at in more detail, I think.

Even more amusing is Google Fight (put in each pair to see “the fight”) where the proper order is maintained. The problem is though the words are not linked to each other but rather it is about frequency without context. Not very scientific but fun to say the least.