| Adjective: |
- Able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
- (esp. of development, exploitation, or agriculture) Conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.
Why is knowing the definition of "Sustainable" important when it comes to our environment?
Here someone's view of sustainability : by Tsalyer: "Environmental sustainability is important because our food and water comes from the environment. If we use too much of it we will run out. If we run out and there is no way to produce more we will eventually become extinct."
That about sums it up.
If one stops to think about it....we are using up items and resources faster than the earth can produce them. This is why recycling is so very important to us all. Why would someone throw away a perfectly good plastic bottle that could be recycled into another plastic item? If a recycling program is available in one's home town, there is no excuse not to recycle. It is as easy as taking out the trash, but it's less stinky and messy!
Think of all the trash you make, all by yourself, in just one day. Now think of all the trash your family makes in just one day. Think of how often you take out the trash. Now, think of trash day and driving through your neighborhood seeing all of the trash at the end of everyone's driveways. Trash day happens twice a week in our neighborhood. Now, try to wrap your thoughts around every home and business in this Country (not even the entire world, just our own Country) and the trash that we all produce daily, let alone weekly, monthly, yearly, in a lifetime. Honestly, I don't know where it all goes (well, tons of it goes into the ocean, but that's another blog entry), do you?
I can tell you that steam almost literally comes out of my ears when I find a recyclable item in our trash bin (ask my girls). It is just as easy to put that plastic water bottle into the recycle bin as it was to put in the stinky trash bin.
One way to keep the landfills from being "well stocked" with plastics, styrofoam containers, aluminum and the like, is to not use them, use as little as possible, and recycle what is able to be salvaged. Not everyone uses the same measures or makes the same efforts to recycle. But any little bit is truly better than no effort at all.
Here are some of the things we do at our house to help sustain the environment: Besides recycling as much as possible, we use baking parchment paper at our house where some would use aluminum foil. We still use the foil, but sparingly, and then we recycle it. We use wax paper snack baggies for snacks in my girls' lunches when possible, in lieu of plastic baggies. We pack them water in re-usable, double-walled, stainless steel water bottle/thermoses. We make most of our own cleaners and re-use the spray bottles, that we keep the cleaners in, over and over. We use glass for most everything baking-wise and food storage wise. It ensures that we will have long lasting bake-ware and storage-ware with easy recycling ability should they get broken at some point. We return our printer cartridges and old batteries to the appropriate receptacles at various businesses. We try to find someone who can use a large item we may not need anymore, rather than throwing it away as trash, on the curb. We use scrap paper until there is no more room left on the paper. We have low flush toilets (anyone can do this by adding a brick or something solid to take up space in their holding tank). We have a rain barrel. We have drought-resistant landscaping that needs barely any watering. We use free, recycled mulch in our gardens as much as possible (some counties offer this, check yours!) We use as many natural products as possible to avoid contaminating the environment and water supply. These are little things, yet the little things add up when considering every home, every business, and all the trash we produce.
What do you do to help sustain Mother Earth? I would love some new ideas!
We all live on this Earth together. Let's make a New Year's Resolution to do at least one new thing in 2012 that helps sustain our Mother Earth. We all deserve at least that!
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