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1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Although most people mainly focus on recycling, the most important would be reducing your consumption of recyclable goods. For example, when you are at Ralph's and you just bought a jug of milk. You walk to the cashier and wait for your turn. When you finish paying for your jug of milk, the cashier asks you, "Would you like a plastic or paper bag?" A very "green" answer would be "No thank you." Ergo, you will reduce your consumption of paper and plastic bags. The second most important would be reusing what you have. Another "green" answer to the cashier's question would be "No thank you. I have my own." Going to the grocery store isn't the only way to reuse your plastic bags, you can use them to carry your excess clothes to school. Instead of wasting new trash bags for trash cans, you can use plastic grocery bags. Not only plastic and paper bags can be reused, you can also reuse paper. If you have only written on one side of the paper, you can use the other side of the paper as scratch paper when working on math. If both sides of the paper are written on, you can use fold the paper into a box and dump your cherry seeds and bones so you would not have to walk a thousand trips to the trash can or leaving it for your mom or housekeeper to clean away after dinner. Most people focus on the last one, recycling. I believe that you should try your hardest in reducing and reusing rather than recycling. You should still recycle your cans and waterbottles, but just leave all the hard work to the recyling companies. There isn't much you can do except provide water bottles and cans for the recyclers. 2. Carpool, take the bus, walk, or bike The Earth's ozone layer is being destroyed every second. A couple of ways to retard the speed of the dying ozone layer is to carpool with friends or take the bus to go wherever you need to go. The best option of all is to walk. No carbon is released during this process. The best part of walking is that you get your exercise of the day! 3. Preserve energy and electricity When you go to bed at night, it is best to unplug your laptop or computer and all your lights. You don't have to live your life in the darkness, but whenever you leave a room, be sure that the lights are turned off and all electricity-draining accessories are turned off. 4. Save Water Conserving water is important because you never know when there might be a sudden drought. When you are shampooing your hair, turn off the water and don't take very long showers. Another good way to preserve water is to just make sure that the faucet doesn't drip after you wash your hands.Don't use the sprinklers because most of the water ends in the sewers or the sidewalks. 5. Go Digital For all those people out there that uses many pieces of paper, you probably might find your desk full of papers that you haven't had time to organize or shred. You might be searching frantically for a important document. One good way is to go digital. Save it all on the computer or in a USB. It saves paper and saves you time organizing your desk. Saving it on a compuer is a very easy way. You can create a new folder, name it, and put it in anywhere. Do you know what the best part is? You won't be killing any trees!
Try to set long term goals for yourself. Start with the smallest changes and then gradually instill bigger changes. Every little act can add together and create one big change. Sources for Pictures: http://crunchiemummy.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/thou-shalt-covet-thy-mothers-recycled-water-bottle/ http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/sites/family/27335.php http://mihirshah.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/save-water-save-life/ http://blog.mlive.com/news/baycity_impact/2009/01/large_ReadyToGoDigital.jpg |
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By Stephanie Liu