Recycling Reduces Your Carbon Footprint

"I have been all about reducing, reusing, and recyling! For years I have tried my hardest to follow those guidelines. Here are some ways in my everyday life that i follow that motto: At work every time i get a canned soda i always put the cans in the recycling bucket we have in our break rooms. Most people just leave their cans out on the tables but instead of putting them in the trash i put them in the recycle can. Also being that i work in a grocery store you could imagine how many dang plastic bags we go through in just one day or for that matter even weeks or months! Also that some people just pitch the ones that are strays, I usually gather up all of the stray bags and put them in the recycle bin at the entrances for plastic. Beside at work in my home we save the recyclables and take them to the designated recycling facility in our town. If everyone can just take a few baby steps we could all change what the landfills and dumps look like. Because in this time and decade its a very crucial factor. We are making choices that our grand children and great grand children are going to pay for in their decade. So lets tackle this epidemic one by one!"

"I am 17 years old, and I don't remember a time that I didn't recycle. On average, my family of four people fills four recycling bins each week, even though our city only provides one per family. We throw out maybe two bags of trash. We reuse anything we can, from bags to paper, and we are careful about what we bring into the house. We have taken our names off of all junk mail mailing lists, and any junk mail that comes into the house is used as scratch paper. My favorite effort to keep things out of landfills, though, is composting. We throw all of our fruit, veggies, leaves, and grass clippings into a big compost heap in our back yard. Then we use the compost in our garden, where we grow the best tomatoes in the state of Arkansas. It is amazing to me that I can contribute to creating my very favorite veggie (or fruit, which tomatoes really are) simply by tossing my leftovers into the ceramic crock on our counter after I eat!!! I cannot imagine why anyone would not make the effort to keep our planet greener. It's so easy, and it's a great feeling to know that I'm reducing my carbon footprint!"

"I was raised in a way not many people are now a days. Growing up in my house we always recycled. Since I was about five years old, I decided to become a vegetarian all by myself and with that came my concern for the environment. I was always considered the "flower child" of my family. So when I applied to high schools I applied and am attending my last year in an agricultural school. We are given classes about recycling and the various forms that come with it. Just last week I signed up for a recycling program that sends stickers to my house every time we recycle. With those stickers we are given points which I donate to my school so our sheep barn can have a "green roof". A green roof is when there are gardens on the roofs and they are watered with rain water. We have one already and it reuses water in a way where we don't have to physically water it. Recycling was always a big part of my life and beliefs I go on vacation to the islands where my fathers side of the family lives. The way they live is completely different from the way we live. Their beliefs are different but don't oppose to mine. They believe in keeping their island clean because it's where they live. They often dislike tourists because of the habits of littering they bring. Their way of life is reusing and they are conservative about the materials they use. If people who live in the U.S would go out and see how the way life is in places like that, their outlook would change. We have one earth so why should we trash it?"

"Around the world, nations are busy polluting the world. Nations, as a whole, have completely changed the way individuals think about pollution and the adverse effects of airborne pollutants. Contrary to the big corporations of the world out industrializing and paying minimal monetary fees for their destruction of the earth, individuals of these nations have been seeking new, inventive ways to keep the ecology of this world alive. Seeing how there are no supranational governments in place to limit the pollution of developing nations, or even already developed nations, it is even more so up to the individual to counteract the pollution deemed "necessary" and "acceptable" by much of the world's businesses. As an individual, I try my best to not further pollution, even it does seem like a small scaled effort by reducing the amounts of electricity. Living in the 21st Century, there are many products available to people in which emit byproducts that eventually aid to global warming. The world is moving toward a more technologically imbued lifestyle and I am not exempt from that. But even so, I make sure i use products that are labeled with the "Energy Star" sticker to first limit the amount of electricity and overall fossil fuel being used up. If an electronic device is not being used, I unplug it from the socket in order to not waste any more electricity than is necessary. Even now as I type this scholarship admission, I am only using the light from my laptop's screen without the aid of other extraneous light. One thing I do need to act upon is the type of light bulb I use. Right not I am not using the most eco-friendly bulbs. A few car manufacturers are playing with the idea of hydrogen based energy systems being used as opposed to gasoline based or even electric cars. Once more research has been done on it, I will make sure I give aid to those companies by investing in one of those cars. I also reduce my water usage by doing simple things such as not leaving the tap water running as I brush my teeth or shave. I try to take shorter showers, as opposed to long showers, using a lot of hot water, or baths that use extra chemicals that necessary. My family has a somewhat extended variety of of flowers in our garden and we use a sprinkler that enables us to control how much water we use as well as how many times a week the plants get watered. This helps reduce the amount of water that could be wasted from an average sprinkler system. As far as reusing, I must admit my experience is somewhat limited. Biodegradable items, such as banana peels and eggshells, frequent our gardening soil. I reuse scratch paper before recycling them- which I will touch on more extensively. I use a laser printer which cuts back on the amount of ink and ink cartridges being used. Sometimes extra copies of a document are printed however, but I find a way to make sure it isn't for naught. Recycling has also become a huge part of my life. I recycle by myself instead of using services provided by the city because this also reduced the amount of gas emissions and pollutants. The amount of gas being used for trucks to come and recycle for us somewhat offsets the amount of good being done by recycling in the first place. But on top of recycling, I also limit the amount of plastics I use. In a week long experiment I went along with the idea of not using plastic in favor of less polluting alternatives. Plastic disposal has become a pretty big problem because of the amount of time it takes for plastic to degrade. If we all limit the amount, as well as recycle, of plastics used, this problem will soon vanish. As mentioned before, we live in a world were technology is avidly used. These products are not meant to last forever though, and sometimes need to be thrown away. But luckily there are also e-waste communities to take care of products such as batteries, computers and other machines. This also reduces the amount of harmful substances being thrown around. I have also been known to explain to people why people should recycle, or really just limit the amount of environmentally hazardous products people use, instead of recycling for the sake of recycling. As I continue to grow, I will come up with more ways to clean up this problem of waste- physical and ideological. Perhaps I will be able to aid in projects that affect people statewide, nationwide or even globally eventually. There are already a few advances that certain countries have taken in order to limit pollution. The U.S., especially western U.S., is definitely one of them taking charge."

"Reduce,reuse,recycle the three R's many humans on this suffering planet are not familiar with. Many take this earth saving method as just an environmental over exaggeration not realizing how effective cooperating with the system can be. Due to budget cuts in my hometown of Yonkers my schools programs have been low on supply. I noticed that my school goes through tons of paper with memos, schedules , and information necessary for the student body. Many papers that are received are read and then immediately thrown out especially in the hands of students. So realizing that i took the initiative to bring up to my teacher that we should start a recycling program not only to raise money for supplies but for the good of the environment. My idea was then presented to my principal by the student body and he approved of it. Now that we had gotten authority consent, it was time to get the program running.Plastic bins were given to every teacher in the school and a verbal memo was announced, teachers are instructed to place any unwanted office paper, news paper , magazines , and construction paper in their received bins and to leave the bins out every seventh period. During the school day every seventh period a few classmates and I walk around the school building with the rolling recycling can collecting all the paper from the classrooms. After the paper is collected from the classrooms it is brought outside by us and put into our recycling dumpster outside the school and is picked up twice a week by the recycling truck . In the comfort in my own home I still follow the routine followed in school and more all the paper and or cardboard within the house that is not being used is placed in the recycling bin. Likewise with the bottles and cans used in the household. Paper/cardboard is picked up every Monday , bottles and cans are picked up every Wednesday. The importance of recycling surpasses many but not my community and school student body."