Blog Action Day – How can students help the environment
Today is Blog action day – where thousands of blogs produce a post on one topic – this year it is ‘the environment’.
Millions of students are studying at the moment and if only a fraction of us where to cut down our usage of energy and recycle more, then we could really make a difference.
Thus, the discussion on road2graduation is ‘how can students positively affect the environment’. Hopefully, many of you will add your actions and thoughts below, which could aid in the academic community further helping the environment.
Walk to your lectures or catch public transport – for many, a car at college/university is a must, but why? Yes, public transport isn’t great, but if you used it more then there wouldn’t be so many carbon emissions from your car being pumped into the environment.
Read journal articles and books online – nearly all libraries on campus have computers nowadays and have the latest technology to browse the web. Reading articles and e-books online will mean you don’t have to print them off and (especially during dissertation/thesis time where you’ll be printing more than 100, 30 page ones) waste thousands of sheets of paper.
Recycle text books – when it’s coming to the end of a term and you think you’ll no longer need a certain text book, put a post on your online noticeboard to see if other students would like to buy your book, or even e-book at a reduced rate?
Use recycled paper – when printing your essays, reports or printouts for a presentation why not used recycled paper?
Turn your computer off – Sometimes it is easier to put your computer or laptop onto standby if you’re ‘only nipping to the gym for an hour workout and it’ll take ages for it to load up!’ – but turning your computer off will save valuable energy.
Switch those light-bulbs – I know regular light-bulbs are a lot cheaper than energy saving ones, but invest in them and they’ll last you longer than the others, and use a lot less energy (meaning your bills will be lower!).
Plant a tree – as we learnt in playschool (kindergarten) – well maybe a little later, but it was certainly when everybody else was ‘really big’ – we have been told that trees recycle carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. You could plant a tree in your garden at a student house, or even setup a group/club at your university to plant a tree a month, or even one a year. Doing this will help the local environment around you and could influence other do do it too.
I know there is a lot more things that students can do and it would be great if we could start a discussion in the comments section of this post.
The Discussion