In the 80’s people talked about the 3 R’s
“Reduce Re-use Re-cycle”.
Now there are Multiple R’s
When researching and writing about waste reduction and the ‘classic 4 R’s’ mentioned by in the 90’s we (A. Sampson-Kelly, P. Kelly and M. Sampson) realised the importance of a 5th R: Redesign. Since then Lela Copeland one of our graduates in Hawaii wrote about Re-use by modification (Retrofit). Then there were 6 R’s. Permaculture North Sydney had more and there were 10 R’s to consider. Flavia Reis and Shane Moon suggested two more. Megan suggested another – Resist.
We now have many very useful R’s:
Resist, Refuse, Reduce, Redistribute (share), Re-use, Retrofit,
Repair, Recycle, Refurbish, Restore, Regenerate, Rebuild and Redesign.
