I had a few minutes this morning to sort through the stuff my son brought home from school on the last day. I had just enough time to tackle this one folder of papers.

I broke it out into three piles.

Pile One – Recycle

These are the papers that are printed front and back. Unless you have a compost pile, these papers go straight into the recycle bin.

Pile Two – Reuse

These are the pages with blank backs. I store these by the printer and use them for printing when I don’t have to have a new piece of paper. Just from this one folder, I saved 86 pieces of paper that I can now reuse. The half sheets of paper and colored paper with blank backs are cut into scratch paper for use by the phone.

Pile Three – Memory Box

These are the worksheets and writing assignments that I want to keep in my son’s memory box.

Ironically one of the pieces I want to keep begins, “Dear Mom, I think that we should try harder to save the earth.” I don’t know whether to laugh or to feel guilty that I’m not trying harder. Sigh. I think I’m going to chose to laugh and then finish sorting my salvaged papers.