The world is moving in two directions at once. First, no matter in what respect we look at our lives, we are more advanced than we ever were. With technology and knowledge, we are achieving the milestones which our ancestors couldn’t even dream of. However, on the other hand, in some way we are also paying a price for it. By exploiting our natural resources very greedily we are quickly leading our planet to its doom. To save it, we need to make some quick and effective decisions. A sum of all those decisions and actions that work in favor to protect the natural world are the factors of environmental sustainability. These factors conserve the potential of the environment to support human life. Since some years in the past, the issue of sustaining the environment has become one of the most ballyhooed issues.
Why sustaining the environment is our responsibility?
Environmental sustainability involves making decisions to reduce the negative impact that your business or personal motives inflict on the environment. Environmental sustainability is a newsworthy issue that receives plenty of attention from the media and from different legislative departments. All this is a result of the realization that surfaced owing to various researches done to find out the impact of human activity on the environment. Businesses contribute the most to disturb environmental well being, as they cause damage to all the areas of the environment like –
- Polluting the air through burning fossil fuels.
- Polluting water resources by throwing chemical waste in them.
- Damage woodlands by extensive logging.
- Deprive the land of its fertility, as they use chemical fertilizers for better produce.
Most businesses have a reckless attitude towards the conservation of our environment, and all that they are concerned about is just the profit. They work for profit maximization but rarely think of sustaining the environment. However, now the majority of businesses are turning towards various ways to sustain their business as well as the environment. Every business or an Individual should rise above their personal motives, think and work for bettering the environment, because if we will sustain the environment then it will sustain us. Otherwise, if we will ignore the environment, the following are the things it will do to us:
Our future depends upon it:
Environmental sustainability is of extreme importance for everybody, as the actions and the choices made by us today will affect the coming generations after years. One should take environmental decisions with utmost care so that the future generations do not face hardships because of our generation. For instance, if you overexploit the natural resources or waste amenities like fresh water, then the future generations will be left with nothing and they will have to face scarcity.
If ignored, can lead to extinction:
If people will not care to sustain the environment, it will lead to the extinction of the human race. In addition, if clean water, soil and other natural resources will become scarce, there will be famines and humans will die, thus, the human race will go extinct. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to make all efforts to sustain our environment.
Taking steps for sustaining the environment
By making simple changes in our daily lives, we can contribute towards sustaining the environment. Everyone is trying to ‘go green’ these days. It is fundamentally about doing the most to consume the least. We can do our bit to leave in a greener world. All we need to do is, bring about some small changes in our lifestyles. We all should think about a sustainable environment and our aim should be to live on a greener planet. Moreover, we all should practice the three Rs of environment that is reduce, reuse and recycle. We can take many steps to leave in a greener world and make our lives better. Here are some environmental tips to go green.
1. Save energy
Fluorescent light bulbs can be used in place of incandescent light bulbs. You should switch your electrical appliances to energy star appliances. Energy star is program backed by government which identifies appliances that make use of less energy as compared to other appliances. To save energy, you can also use cold water to wash clothes instead of hot water. In the day time, you can open the curtains and allow the natural sun light to brighten your room. Make sure to turn off the lights, fans, and other electrical appliances when they are not needed.
Most of the time, students leave their computers on and go off to sleep. They should not do that. Always make it a point to completely switch off your computer before you go to bed. Install a programmable thermostat that will regulate your home temperature by keeping it cool or warm automatically and use drying racks to dry your clothes instead of drying machines.
2. Save water
Make it a practice to take showers for few minutes, this saves a lot of water and energy used to heat water in winters. You can install low-flow shower heads and these low-flow shower heads will help you save a lot of water. You can even install low flush toilets. With all these, make sure to install faucet aerator on each faucet. It costs very less and helps to conserve heat and water, without hampering the water pressure. You can use rain water to water your garden. If possible, you can even harvest rain water. Just install a big drum on your roof top and store rain water.
3. Eat smart
Buy organic vegetables. In your backyard, you can even grow some of the organic vegetables. Spinach can be grown very easily. By consuming organic food, your body would not get contaminated with the pesticides and chemicals that are present in the vegetables available in the local market. If you are a non-vegetarian then make it a point to eat low on food chain. Add meatless meals to your diet.
4. Skip bottled water
Avoid buying bottled water. You can buy a reusable water bottle and carry it to work or school. Aluminum bottles make great reusable bottles. Avoid plastic bottles.
5. Borrow books instead of buying
You can borrow books from libraries and from your friends instead of buying. This saves money as well as the ink and paper that goes into printing new books.
6. Buy smart
Try to purchase food items in bulk. This saves packaging. Buy and wear clothes that need less or no dry cleaning. This saves money as well as it cuts down on toxic chemicals. Plus, it reduces the use of non renewable resources.
7. Some more tips to go green
- Ban disposable and plastic bags for yourself.
- Make use of cloth bags.
- Whenever you go for shopping, carry your own reusable bag and say no to plastic bags.
- Always drive in the speed limit that is allowed by the traffic police. This move will surely help you conserve fossil fuel.
- Always choose to walk or make use of a bicycle to nearby places. You can always do so, if your destination place is anywhere between two miles.
- Use your electrical appliances as long as you can.
- Recycle your cellphones.
- Use non-toxic products to clean things. Baking soda and lemon can be used to clean a variety of items.
- Make a homemade composite bin.
- Switch off you vehicle’s engine, especially in traffic posts.
- Unplug unused chargers and appliances.
- Try to pay all your bills on line. This will save paper.
- Reuse scarp paper. You can give these papers to your kids who love to paint. They can use the back side of these papers to paint.
- Use less of disposable diapers and more of cloth diapers.
- Use cloth to clean your kitchen instead of paper. Cloth napkins can be used on a regular basis instead of paper napkins.
- Make it a practice to use less of tissue papers.
- Make use of paper as less as you can. By doing this, you can save those millions of trees which are getting cut daily in order to meet a common man’s paper requirement.
- And the most important of all, plant trees as much as you can. This helps in sustaining the environment in numerous ways. Support plantation.
