Quad: You don't see me!

Actually, I'm working my way to be environmental, or as you may call, 'green'! I'm starting slow and will work my way up to living an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Baby steps:
-- Recycling --
Aluminum cans are easy to recycle, and you can find places that will even pay you for aluminum! Recycled aluminum can be reused again and again, and saves not only natural resources but energy and money as well. My family actually already recycles aluminum - we generally have a large bag that we place crushed cans into.

Batteries are often overlooked, but I am recycling them because in a landfill they often leak out many substances such as zinc, lead, nickel, manganese, cadmium, and alkalines into the water table below the landfill. Though it's not a hugely recognized hazard, it's not stuff you want in your water! For this measure I have bought a large plastic container, which is hanging in our pantry and is labeled for batteries. So when one of my family members goes to throw a battery away, hopefully they'll see the container and toss them in.

Plastic bags will be a little tougher for me to stop using. We use them for so many things in my family, especially with waste disposal. My brother recently gave us some fabric shopping bags from his workplace that I will get into the habit of using eventually. I always take a plastic bag with me when I walk Brandy to pick up her poop, but I am going to look at our local pet stores for biodegradable poop bags. For now, I'm going to have to make due with the plastic bags. My workplace has a container for recycling plastic bags, so we will start to use less of them and recycle what we don't need. Plastic bags are costly to make as well as to clean up, so it's a very good thing to recycle them.

Plastic bottles are not recycled in our family, and this is quite a problem, because we go through a lot of bottles. From 2 liters to my mom's water bottles, we throw away a lot of plastic. Plastic bottles fill up landfills quick, and they don't disintegrate for up to 1000 years! What's worse is that everyone uses them, and they just don't get recycled. I will start to be aware of this for myself, as I soon learned we actually have a plastic bottle recycle bin at my school! Maybe I'll leave a bag for my family to drop their plastic bottles in, and I can take them to the recycling bin at school.

--Resources--

I'm going to try my best to cut down on my energy use. This includes turning lights off when they don't need to be on, turning the fan near my bed off when I'm not using it, and unplugging things that don't need to use energy. Reducing energy not only saves money, but also cuts down on resource use and can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I will also try to save energy costs at school and work when I can.

In addition, I'll also try to save water use. I'll take less time in the shower, and at work I won't use as much water washing the floors. We actually have a small percent of fresh water on the planet, and most of it is locked up in glaciers, so we shouldn't be wasteful with fresh water.

I'll also try to use more environmentally friendly substances and recycled products.

Future goals:
- Be a strong advocate for recycling and saving energy and resources when I have my own house.
- Use energy-efficient appliances.
- Hopefully have a vehicle that is both 4-wheel drive and has great gas millage.
- Save the world, if only a little!

So anyway, thanks for reading! I'm not trying to be judgmental, but rather to be informative on some of the problems we are having with lack of recycling and energy consumption. I say even adopting one of these ideas would greatly improve our world's environment, and in many cases, even save you some money!



Quad: So be greeeeeeeen!