Everybody’s into saving, following the ‘3 R’s’ mantra of “reuse, reduce, recycle” since grade school. However, there’s a limit to how much you can reuse and recycle things until reducing is thrown out the window. When you get to that stage-- congratulations-- you’re a “pack rat."

Ten signs of a pack rat:

1. "To-recycle-sometime-pile"

You have 5+ bags of recycling bottles, cans, etc. thrown in the garage (or some other convenient place in the corner) to “recycle sometime”, some of which have been left there for months (...or longer).

2. Extra napkins

You have napkins from a variety of restaurants scattered in various pockets and nooks of your car, especially your front compartment. (Free tissues!) However, they never get used since everybody (including you) uses the tissue box in the middle of the car. You end up having to dig through old napkins when trying to find anything in your car. (This can also apply to straws and various plastic silverware also).

3. Scrap paper

You keep paper that has been only printed on one side: “the other side’s perfectly blank, don’t want to waste a good sheet of paper." The papers end up in stacks next to the printer, which you keep forgoing for the printer paper you keep buying though you daily see the sad stacks. You then try, periodically, to use the recycled paper you’ve kept, but either you keep forgetting how to properly put it in the printer so that it comes out on the printed side-- "stupid printer"-- or you end up putting it face down so that you forget that you’ve printed and print another copy while confusedly wondering why you have your class syllabus on your desk (until you flip it over).

4. Left over snacks

You bring back all the leftover chips and crackers from potlucks, "snacks for later." You bring back the free food available, even though you don’t like it all that much. Of course, your kids would eat it, so no waste right? Instead, you end up buying what your kids want to really eat when they complain there’s nothing to eat at home. The bags, all nicely clipped, are forgotten and brushed aside in cupboards for the other snacks you’ve bought, only to be remembered and thrown away five years past their expiration date.

5. Plastic Bags

Need I say more? (As if the enormously high pile taking over your kitchen can’t speak for itself yet.)

6. Extra cardboard

You save cardboard from various packages, because “this can be used for projects!" You save and cut up cardboard from tissue boxes, packaging boxes, and especially those Krispy Kreme boxes (the nice white cardboard) to save for your kids’ poster projects. You put them beneath your desk for safekeeping and hand them to your kids whenever they ask you for poster paper to make a presentation. Soon after though, you find yourself in Walmart, after your kids come back complaining that their friends won’t stop making Krispy Kreme jokes at them, and they’ll never present again if you give them recycled cardboard. The recycled cardboard ends up piling under your desk, with you continually saving, hoping your kids will change their minds, or the thought that you’ll use them yourself (which you never do). You end up with a sore back due to hunching over your desk, trying to read your computer, since there’s no room left under your desk for your legs.

7. Keeping old clothes for rags

You keep your kids’ old clothes (cleaned!) in bags to be used for rags, those that can’t be handed-me-down anymore (somewhere, a kid is sighing in relief). You use your kids’ old underwear usually because the size is small and good for wiping the floor with. You stop after your kid tells you during bedtime that one of his friends asked who's underwear it was on the kitchen floor. You buy normal rags, and the bags are kept in your closet (and you keep wondering why you never have room).

8. Rubber bands

The first drawer in the kitchen (or someplace in your house) is full of them. You keep the rubber bands from packages to be used for your own at a later time. (Save money!) You end up almost never using them, and the rubber bands turn old in your drawer (or drawers, depends how big your drawer is and how many rubber bands you’ve saved). You find out just how old they are when you try to use the rubber bands years later and get snapped repeatedly as you try old rubber band after old rubber band. You finally go to Walmart again to get new rubber bands with smarting hands.

9. Old appliances

Sure, everybody has some old lamps and appliances kept in their respective garages. However, you like to think if something still works (regardless of appearance), it’s still usable. You save that computer (your first laptop!) that is older than your kid for sentimental values, but mainly "because it still works," even though the time it takes to turn it on and load probably takes 30 minutes, if not more. You end up fighting your kid for computer time on the newer laptop you’ve bought for him (it’s my money). Meanwhile, the sad lamps (plural) with the broken lamp shades collect dust in the dark corner in the garage.

10. Sandwich baggies

You tell you kids to save the sandwich bags from their lunches to bring home to be reused. Your kids do, but sometimes they leave parts of their lunch in them too. You remind them then to dump out any remaining food, wash them, and hang them to dry. You either come back after work for the day either with zipped-up lunch bags, probably filled with spoiled lunch (your kids forgot) or your kitchen full of sandwich baggies hung all over the kitchen (you never thought you packed that much). Your kids, to avoid doing more work, mostly start to throw away their sandwich bags at school anyways, so you buy more sandwich baggies. The ones you painstakingly manage to recycle are put with the rubber bands (which you avoid, due to pain when thinking of rubber bands possibly).

For the record, all these examples and quotes were taken from my mom and/or dad. As I live with my family, I realize I have gotten some of these habits too. While it's great to recycle, it's not truly recycling unless you have a use for it. Otherwise, it just creates junk and takes up space. Sometimes, things should be thrown away. But, habit is habit, and RECYCLING IS GOOD (such as saving the sandwich baggie that my mom packed fruit in).