Hi, my name is Alienna and today I am your advocate for environmental change.
I’m going to give you four easy beginner’s steps to help you reduce any negative environmental impact you may be leaving. They may be small, but these eco-friendly tips could actually save your family hundreds of dollars over the course of just a year. And believe it or not, it will make a difference in the environment, especially if you encourage others to join you.
Okay, so we all know the three “R’s”: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, not a lot of us pay attention to the order that they’re in. Before you recycle, as many people do first, try to aim to reduce first. Here’s a few ways how:
1. Plastic bags. Did you know in some places in Europe you have to pay for your plastic bags? That’s right. And to me that makes a lot of sense. We overuse these things way too much. Many times if you stop and think about what you’re purchasing, you don’t need a bag at all, and you can in fact manage to carry it in your own hands.
But if there is more than you can handle, a great supplement for small, flimsy plastic bags are large, sturdy tote bags like this:
They fit more products, they’re easier to carry, they’re less likely to break on you, they’re fashionable, and they help the environment at the same time. Just keep them in your car or near the door so you don’t forget them when you go out.
Make sure you tell the cashier that you would like to use your own bag or that you wouldn’t like to use any before they start checking your items. They can be pretty speedy and it’s a little obnoxious to ask them to take your items out of the bag they already packed.
Now many people will react differently to your request. I’ve encountered both ends of the spectrum. Some may seem very interested in what you’re doing. I have had full conversations about “euro bags” and environmental impact with some cashiers. Others may look at you like a weirdo from another planet. The main thing is to embrace the good and pay no mind to the bad.
Okay, 2. Water bottles. Plastic water bottles to be more specific. Now believe it or not, tap water can be a lot less contaminated than bottled water. A family friend of ours who lives in Savannah does water testing as a living, and has warned us against drinking bottled water for years. These companies have standards, yes, but the standards are not always the healthiest out there. Here is what Debi Carey Harbuck says are the "most important things:
1) Bottled water isn't regulated by the EPA. It is marginally overseen by the FDA because it's considered a 'packaged food product,' but there is no national standard.
2) The bottles are an environmental double-whammy-- they consume an awful lot of petroleum in their manufacture AND they create a tremendous amount of garbage.
A third issue is that most of the water being sold as 'bottled water' actually comes from tap water in other places. And that's just a goofy thing to spend your money on."
If you drink city water, you should know that your local waste water treatment plant does a very thorough job in making sure that your tap water has minimal contamination—especially compared to bottled water. But if you’re still unsure, or if you have well water, a purifier is the best route to take.
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The great thing about purifiers is that they come in so many forms nowadays. You can buy a pitcher that you keep in your fridge, you can attach one straight to your faucet, or you can even buy one that purifies multiple water bottles at once
or where the filter is right at the mouth of the bottle. So you can pour in tap water and it filters as you drink. (They’re called Karim Rashid Bobbles)
So besides health, plastic water bottles are also not the best for the environment. Manufacturers need a lot of energy to both make them and recycle them. And if you can’t recycle your bottles, landfills aren’t a great place for them, either. It takes up to 1000 years for a water bottle (and plastic bags) to decompose.
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And the simplest solution is: buy a reusable water bottle! These are pretty cool. Like I said, you could buy one with a built in purifier, or you could try to find one that may fit your personality a bit better. You could go for a Nalgene, or a Klean Kanteen, or a CamelBak…
This is the water bottle that I use. I won it for being Top of the Crop during our Hydrology Unit in my AP Environmental Science class. It’s a Green Canteen that my teacher got at Kohl’s for ten bucks. And it’s BPA free! So I decorated it with various stickers, I always know that it’s mine, and I’m proud to carry it around. A fun quarky way to help the environment and individualize yourself, I guess.
3. Washing your clothes. Let’s say you wake up during your summer vacation, you get dressed, but you don’t really do much all day. When you get ready for bed you toss your clothes in your hamper. STOP. Think back: what exactly did you do today?
Ate cereal while watching tv, fed the fish, read your summer reading out on the porch, met up with your friend and got icecream… Does this stuff really need to be washed after all that? Answer: probably not.
By holding off on washing your clothes and wearing them more than once before you do, you reduce laundry loads, which in turn reduces water use, which reduces soap and dryer sheet use, which means you buy less each year, which means you reduce your trash and the amount of money you spend. Amazing!
Alright, number 4. Now, I hate to break this to you, but… You have vampires living in your house. Yup. It’s true. They’re probably waiting in your bedroom or your living room right now, ready to suck hundreds of dollars from your pocket each year.
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Okay, so I forgot to mention one thing. I meant your phone, camera, ipod, and computer chargers. These helpful, innocent-looking wires are also known as “vampire appliances.” When they’re plugged into your wall, they’re still using electricity—even when they’re not actually charging anything.
Well, technically they are charging something: your credit card. Depending on your electric company’s rate, leaving a phone charger plugged-in for, say, 10 hours a day can add over $250.00 to your bill each year.
Also, fully charging any handheld device does not take overnight, so leaving it plugged in while you sleep is also wasting electricity. So unplug those chargers!
Okay, so hopefully these tips aren’t too hard to follow, and I look forward to maybe seeing other people refusing plastic bags next to me at the check-out counter one day. Oh! And if you can’t get other family members or friends into it, I find that persistence always works. Eventually they’ll run out of excuses. Thanks for reading! Work hard, be kind, and good luck!
