Before You Recycle, Try Reusing That Product

Move over recycling. Reusing is the rising star, according to a new book by Nikki and David Goldbeck.

Secondhand stuff is chic, say the authors of “Choose to Reuse.” It’s better for the environment, cheaper and has an economic benefit.

The husband and wife writers came to public attention in 1973 with their first book, “The Supermarket Handbook,” advocating natural foods; it sold 850,000 copies. They seem adept at tapping into trends.

Recycling in the Goldbecks’ lexicon means reprocessing a manufactured product into raw material that is then used to create a new product - turning shredded tires into asphalt.

Reusing, on the other hand, emphasizes alternative approaches: maintaining items so they last longer, repairing when possible, finding innovative uses for products without reprocessing them - using old tires to make artificial ocean reefs - and simple remanufacturing - cutting up tires to make handbags and belts.

“Choose to Reuse: An Encyclopedia of Services, Products, Programs & Charitable Organizations that Foster Reuse” (Ceres Press, Woodstock, N.Y., 455 pages, $15.95) lists more than 2,000 products, manufacturers and organizations that encourage reuse: It suggests where to buy second-hand draperies and non-exploding, reusable fireworks and how to make decorative candleholders of old metal containers.

Some ideas are obvious: using a metal tea infuser rather than fiber tea bags. Some go to the extreme: keeping calendars for seven years until the days and dates again coincide.