By Labina Tasfia, Staff Writer
Sustainability can be defined as the balance between environment, equity and economy. In the context of the 21st century, it means providing for the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to survive and meet their needs. Sustainability Day was created to remind the community of the importance of caring for the environment and the steps to do so. This day is celebrated every year on the last Wednesday of October. So, with the current state the world is in right now, I wanted to make a list of some things we could do to make our lives more sustainable and take a small step towards saving our environment. Because, as Robert Swan had said, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone will save it.”
For people living on campus, there are many ways you can be sustainable. Below are some of the ways we can do so:
Eat at the cafeteria. Don’t order to go unless you absolutely need to.
Don’t waste your food. Take only as much as you can eat.
Invest in reusable water bottles.
Take shorter showers. Cutting your showers by just a minute can save up to 800 gallons of water per year.
Don’t keep the water running when you aren’t using it. Always check to see if the water tap is closed properly because 30 drops of water wasted per minute wastes almost 2.4 gallons of water each day.
Don’t waste napkins and paper towels.
Try to go paperless and opt out of junk mail. Paper products use up to at least 35% of the world’s commercial wood harvest.
Utilize the sunlight! Open up the window in your room and let the natural light in instead of turning on the light bulbs.
Turn the lights off every time you leave your room.
If you go grocery shopping, take a reusable shopping bag and refuse plastic bags
Donate items you no longer need or haven’t used in the past few months.
Walk or bike more than you drive. Not only is that good for your health, but for the environment as well.
There are many other ways we can make our lives sustainable. If every one of us decides to pick up at least a few sustainable habits, then all of it together will help our environment immensely. So, let’s set a goal for ourselves to pick up and stick to at least one sustainable habit this upcoming Sustainability Day to make the world a cleaner and more livable place.