Recycling gets a lot of press, but reducing and reusing are better for the environment. The saying is in order, reduce first, then reuse, then recycle. All of these help save resources and preserve our environment. Reducing prevents resources from ever being taken from the environment in the first place. Reusing is in second place because reusing items means that you don't have to take new resources from the environment. Recycling is in third place because a lot of energy is required to recycle materials which often leads to increased pollution from the production of that energy.