If there is one thing that students are, it is busy. Everything has to be on the fly because their study and social schedules are paced. It’s not like they don’t have enough time, it’s more a question of trying to find a balance with all of the freedom.
Inevitably, they are prone to eat fast food and generate a lot of waste along the way. Although they don’t necessarily mean to litter or generate waste, their lifestyles can’t help it. The good news is that they can do something about it. Here is some handy tip for staying green while you are at college.
Plan a cleanup day
It doesn’t matter which way you slice it, all of us have a hand in the current global pollution crisis so all of us can lend a hand to try and make things better as well.
On a personal level, you can consciously start to opt for a single-use plastic alternative to store your drinks. It will take some planning at first and you might forget the bottle at home a couple of times, but you will learn the new habit sooner than you think.
As a group, you could organize a cleanup day and tackle an area near you to clean up. If you don’t want to go outside, do yourself a favor and do a cleanup route on campus.
You’d be surprised at the amount of junk that you will collect throughout the day. The worst part of it all is that there are probably already cleaning staff on campus, so they already do the bulk of the work.
An expert politics and current affairs writer for Australia assignment help, considered one of the best professional writing services, has something inspiring to share. He says if, for nothing else, this exercise can serve as an eye-opener for you and your friends. You’ll get to see the effects of your littering first-hand. Then you might understand why they say that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
Have the activist chat
As a student and you should start practicing your voice on the issues of the world. Why not prompt a discussion on the current state of affairs and where our planet is heading if we don’t do something soon?
There are so many ways in which you can start this conversation, and if you’ve done the homework, you will be able to throw some controversial stats there as well.
The point of a discussion like this one is to educate your peers. The chances are that they are either indifferent, ignorant or completely clueless about what is going on in the world. After you’ve spoken to them about the issue, you can take it up a notch and probe for individuals who will stand with you in the fight against pollution.
There are bound to be a couple of souls who would like to clean up their act, so to speak, and be a catalyst for positive change. This might not be the easiest conversation you have with your peers, but it is definitely worth it, especially when some of them want to join in on the action.
Stop selling and buying single-use products
Students love their fast food, but unfortunately, the comfort comes at a cost. Most fast food products, especially the drinks, come in single-use plastics. You might be chomping on a super healthy tuna salad, but if the oceans keep on getting polluted as they are currently, then you won’t have any tuna to go with your leafy greens.
There are two ways in which you can address this issue. You can either stop buying items that are packaged in single-use plastic or you can start a petition at your local cafeteria to stop selling items that are packaged with single-use plastics.
You’ll get the attention of the managers real quick if they start seeing certain items not doing as well as they should. As soon as you start to tamper with the wallet of a business, they tend to be more compliant in meeting your demands.
Encourage better plastic use principles
If you’ve decided to stop littering, you’ll start to notice how much stuff you discard during the day. Your packed lunches are a great start, but it doesn’t help much if your lunch box is packed with goodies that are wrapped in plastic.
It might look difficult to cut out all plastics, but when you start to pack your lunches with a minimum plastic tolerance, you’ll start to find alternative ways for packing your stuff.
No one is saying that you have to quit plastic cold turkey, but it does help when you start to focus more on what the food and drinks are packed into. You’ll develop a consciousness about food packing and soon come up with alternative ways of storing food for the day.
Analyze your day today
The best place to start reducing plastic footprint is to realize where you litter the most. People don’t want to admit that they are in the wrong and they will try and argue their way of confessing guilt. For this reason, you should take notes of all the plastic things you discard in a day. You’ll be surprised at the amount of litter that you produce daily.
After identifying the problem areas, you can start making those minor adjustments like using stainless steel straws. You could give up gum, which is a synthetic plastic and buy boxes instead of bottles. When you buy groceries, buy in bulk and pour out in containers are home. The list is endless.
Conclusion
If you really put mind to living a greener life, you should stop and take a look in the mirror and know that you are guilty. From there, it is easy to start picking off your bad consumer behaviors one by one. It is going to take time to get used to your new lifestyle, but the more you practice, the better you will become.
Author Bio:
Tobias Foster is an experienced academic writer and editor working with Essay writing UK, an online service that provides dissertation help and essay writing help to students. His rich experience spans over a decade and has attended some of the best professional writing training to hone his skills and reach the pinnacle in the academic writing field.
