On behalf of the Scully Company Social Responsibility Committee, we’re excited to invite you to participate in our Reduced Waste Challenge.

Reduced Waste Challenge

The Challenge:

September is Environmental Awareness Month. Any time during September, fulfill each of the 7 unique challenges below. Each has a goal that can hopefully transition into a greener way of life for you.

The Contest:

As you fulfill each challenge, take a photo of yourself partaking in the challenge. You don’t have to be physically in the shot if you don’t want to.

Then, create a Facebook or Instagram post with all 7 photos and include the hashtag #ScullyCares. Let everyone know that you’re participating Scully Company’s “Reduced Waste Challenge”.

Important: Ensure that your post is set to “Public” so that it can be found in hashtag searches.

The Winner:

Sometime during the first week of October, we’ll randomly choose a winner from those that completed the challenge. The winner will receive a $300 gift card for EarthHero.com.

Our Goal:

Collectively, there are many ways to reduce waste, better your community and ultimately save money. We hope that these initiatives help instill a better wellbeing in your life.

Reduced Waste Challenge

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#1 – Opt Out From Receiving Unwanted Junk Mail

How To Do It:

Why It Matters:

  • 60% of all junk mail ends up in landfills and is not recycled. (EPA.gov)
  • Junk mail adds 1 billion pounds of waste to landfills each year. (HealthPlanet.com)
  • 33% of mail delivered worldwide is junk mail. (HealthPlanet.com)
  • Junk mail produces more than 51 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, which equals 9 million passenger cars. (HealthPlanet.com)

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#2 – Shop Secondhand Stores or Consignment

How To Do It:

  • Moving forward, try and buy clothes that are timeless that you’d love forever.
  • Check out secondhand stores for appliances, books, tools, clothes and more.
  • Check out consignment stores for clothing.
  • Find thrift stores near you at the National Thrift Store Directory: https://www.thethriftshopper.c…

Why It Matters:

  • It could save you hundreds of dollars.
  • It takes clothes out of the waste cycle.
  • The average U.S. citizen throws away 70 lbs of clothing and other textiles annually.
  • Textile waste accounts for 5% of landfills.

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#3 – Reduce Delivery & Shipping Waste

How To Do It:

  • Outside of food, try a “Buy Nothing Week” and see how much you can reduce and how much money you save.
  • Order from Amazon in bulk opposed to individual items. Budget, plan and consolidate your purchases for the month.
  • Ensure you recycle all cardboard boxes.
  • Choose Amazon “Frustration Free” packaging, which doesn’t include unnecessary packaging: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help…
  • Buy from companies making efforts with sustainable packaging and delivery. Examples:

Why It Matters:

  • Delivery waste is on the rise. Plastic air pillows and bubble wrap account for most of the waste from Amazon. Combined length of the air pillows used by Amazon in one year would circle the Earth 500 times. (Forbes).
  • Plastic air pillows cannot be recycled by curbside pickup services. The thin plastic film gets caught in the machinery.
  • Plastic waste is damaging to marine environments. It can poison wildlife and choke marine life from getting into the food cycle.
  • Eight million metric tons (17.6 billion pounds) of waste is dumped into the oceans each year.
  • By 2050, ocean plastic will outweigh all the ocean’s fish. (Conservation.org).

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#4 – Shop At Farmers Markets

How To Do:

Why It Matters:

  • Eating seasonal, local fruits and vegetables cuts your ecological footprint.
  • It provides the freshest produce possible.
  • Reduced carbon footprint.
  • Support local food producers.

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#5 – Sell or Donate Old Items

How To Do It:

  • Declutter your home by selling non-broken household items on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or simply donate them to Thrift Stores.
  • Find items under beds, in cabinets and shelves, in storage – question why you’re holding onto it.

Why It Matters:

  • Feel good knowing that the clutter in your home is someone else’s necessity.
  • A cluttered house could lead to a cluttered mind.
  • Repurposing items opposed to adding them to a landfill will lower the municipal solid waste per person. As of 2018, this number was 4.9 lbs per person per day. (EPA.gov)

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#6 – Use A Reusable Travel Mug

How To Do It:

  • Buying coffee (or tea) on the go is common for many of us. There are dozens of options out there with varying degrees of temperature retention and sizes, but they are all better than using disposable paper / plastic cups.
  • Here’s a list of 13 of the best ones: https://www.nbcnews.com/shoppi…

Why It Matters:

  • 5 billion single-use coffee cups are discarded globally every year, which equals 5,000 every minute. (PlaineProducts.com)
  • Only 1% of these cups are recycled due to the thin waterproof layer of polyethylene on each cup, which many facilities can’t remove. (PlaineProducts.com)

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#7 – Walk (Or Bike) Instead Of Driving

How To Do It:

  • Need to go to the store for a few things? Try walking there instead of driving.
  • If you can’t walk anywhere from your community, drive to a town where you can park and then walk to several other stores.
  • Vary your route to change up the scenery.

Why It Matters:

  • Save money on gas and your carbon footprint.
  • Get fresh air. Burn calories. Feel better!
  • Meet new people in your community looking to do the same. Have great conversations.
  • Reduce traffic and noise levels.

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Thanks and we hope that you enjoy the challenge!