Many people don’t realize that a lot of things they do, big or small, can be harmful to the environment. You may be thinking “why should I even care about the environment?”.
Well for starters you live in the environment and it’s affecting you and the way you live your life everyday whether you like it or not. Even though we know it is such a big part of our daily lives, many people continue to harm our planet in purposeful ways.
You may not think you’re doing any bad to the environment, but there are some things, even I do that are not helping our planet but instead hurting it. We all have the future of this planet in our hands and we should be doing everything in our power to do good by it.
You don’t have to become an environmental activist or be completely sustainable but there are some minor changes you can make in the way you live your life that would help our planet just a little bit more.
Some of these simple changes are: cutting down on the amount of plastic you use, turning the faucet off when you’re not using it, opt for buying refillable/reusable containers, minding what products you use that wash down the drain, and making more sustainable clothing choices.
Reducing the amount of plastic waste we use is an important one, but how can we actually do this? There are actually a few ways, like recycle or avoid plastics that can’t be recycled, avoid single use plastics, and avoid products with unnecessary packaging.
Another huge part of sustainability is the way we shop. Next time you’re shopping, think about who you’re buying it from, do you really know how it’s made? Large corporations producing products or selling products are the #1 plastic polluters of the world.
Companies like Amazon and Shein participate in major over- consumption and excessive packaging on goods, and what happens to this waste? According to Eco Friendly Habits, 92 million tons of this over-consumption, specifically fast fashion, ends up in landfills every year, and takes over 200 years to decompose. Some more sustainable ways to go about shopping is to look for some eco-friendly companies like Patagonia and Happy Earth or to shop secondhand.
I know it seems like a lot but it’s all just mindless things we do that we don’t realize have substantial consequences. The first step is acknowledging it.
We’ve already touched on what you can do individually, but what can we do as a community or more so a school? There are many things the school board can implement into the way we function at San Marcos High School that would lessen our environmental footprint.
What are some things our school can change to make our world a better place to live in? Cutting down on the amount of electricity we use on campus. Using less energy resources can improve our environment in a numerous amount of ways, carving down the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
This can be achieved by using natural lighting and/ or making the school days shorter. Most of the work we do has moved online and classroom teaching has become less frequent and interactive.
An additional option would be to cut down to 4 instead of 5 school days per week, sounds good doesn’t it? This would lower the amount of greenhouse gasses produced during the transportation of students to and from school. Making this change would have many benefits, not just for the planet but the school systems.
Instead of using tax money or money raised by the school to pay for electricity, we could use that money to benefit the learning and teaching experience for everyone. Like investing in better platforms and applications for students to use, higher wages for staff, or more nutritional school food. The options are endless, it all starts with you.
Another thing we could do is cut down on the amount of school supplies we use. As I said before, most of the work we do is online already so making the complete switch from paper work to online work wouldn’t be too difficult. Making this change would save the school much revenue that would have been used to provide school supplies for the students.
As reported by GreenBinz, “77% of school supplies are wasted, the trash goes to landfills where it will stay for years”. Schools and teachers spend heaping amounts of money on school supplies yearly for more than a third of it to be wasted.
I think school supplies are still needed but in smaller quantities and to be used scarcely. There are better, more efficient ways for students to learn online that don’t involve the over-consumption of school supplies.
“Why should I care about the environment?” A question that was previously asked, should hopefully now be answered.
We should care about the environment because of all the amazing and beautiful things that it provides for all of us, it is our past, present and future. To quote the Lorax “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better”.
Now that we’ve covered a couple courses of action in order to change the way we make an impact on the state of the environment, it’s time for us to actually take these steps.