Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The slogan that is drilled into the heads of every American citizen who supports an environmentally friendly lifestyle is made up of three simple words. These three words are best known as the three R’s of the environment. I had the ability to recite the three R’s with ease from a very young age, “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” is what my Junior Kindergarten teach would stress after snack time everyday. Throughout my life I have heard these three words many times, however despite the familiarity of their sound, I know little about their meaning.

            My family did use a recycling bin, I know this because every Thursday morning my mother would ask me to grab the blue bin from outside and bring it back into the house. After researching about the recycling process for the purpose of writing this blog, I now wonder how many recyclable items I threw in the garbage, rather then the recycling bin. Well, I figured is will be beneficial to put my neglectful habit into numbers. On average I drink three bottles of water a day, therefore I consume 1095 bottles of water a year. Potentially, these bottles could be used for all sorts of new products such as new bottles and containers, lumber, pipe, park benches and railroad ties.

            Recycling is an influential part of the cycle, however it lays a lot of responsibility on the individual consumer. Similarly, reusing and reducing allow consumers to make a substantial contribution to the environment. Reusing is as simple as being creative with the things you own. Instead of referencing my past actions, I am making it a priority to find three things that I can reuse, rather then throw away. Although it is a small contribution to the environment alone, if all 311,591,917 Americans did the same, there would be 934,775,751 less objects in our landfills.

            Lastly, “reducing” is said to be the best way to help the environment. There are several ways that I can reduce that amount of garage that I produce each day. The first being as simple as buying products with the least amount of packaging. Everyday for lunch I get a salad that is packaged in a plastic container. For the next week I am going to use the class bowls that are provided for the students by the campus center. By doing so, I will eliminate this unnecessary container that eventually ends up in the garbage, rather then the recycling bin. Another way that I can contribute to “reusing”, is by carpooling with my friends, rather then driving alone to desired locations around Elmira.

            There are many simple ways that American citizens can improve their environmental footprint. By keeping in mind the meaning of the Three R’s during my daily tasks, I will be able to contribute to the environment regularly, and effectively.

"An Inconvenient Truth."

 

Today in class we watched the movie “Inconvenient Truth,” which is about a former Vice President, Al Gore’s, thoughts and ideas on the environment. Gore focused mainly on global warming. He talked about the effects that global warming had on the generations to come and how we could work together to prevent it. He stressed the fact that global warming is important and how we are in danger of being left with nothing if no one does anything about it. In order to prove his statements about the consequences of global warming, Gore presented scientific facts. Some of the facts that he used were that the glaciers around the world were melting and the lakes and ponds were being dried out.

One of the things that struck me during the movie was when Gore talked about his son. When his son was six years old he got hit by a car and he almost died. The Gore family had to spend an entire month in the hospital while his son was hooked up to different machines to help him breathe. Fortunately, his son started to breathe on his own, but the whole experience changed Gore’s life forever. At first, I did not know why Gore was telling his audience about this experience, but then he tied global warming and his son’s future all together. He wanted to put in even more effort into making a change in the environment because he wanted his son to be able to experience a good life.

This was the first time I watched this film and everything made sense to me, but I would have never thought about this crisis if I had not seen it. People do not seem to recognize that global warming is a big deal. To be honest, even after watching the video I probably won’t do much to make a change in the environment. That sounds selfish and not responsible of me, but it is not something that I am used to in my daily routine. I believe that this is true for many other American’s too. People are not going to make significant changes in their life that are inconvenient for them. For example, most families have multiple cars that they use and they are not going to just use one. Families have different places to go each day, such as jobs in different cities and different schools for their children. I think everyone understands the consequences that could happen but they do not think that it will happen to them. I also believe that if more advocates like Al Gore stepped up and enforced changes in our environments then people would cooperate.

About Me

Hi, my name is Sarah Buckley and I am from South Boston, Massachusetts. I am nineteen years old and I enjoy living in the city. I come from a small town with friends and family all over. I grew up in “Southie” my whole life, including going to catholic schools within my community up until high school. I attended Archbishop Williams High School, which was also a catholic school, for grades 9-12. Everyone in South Boston looks out for each other and we try to keep the environment as safe as possible. I live with my parents and older siblings, Taylor and Dennis. Taylor is twenty-five years old and Dennis is twenty-two years old. Taylor’s three-year old son, Brayden, also lives with us. I am currently enrolled as a freshman student at Elmira College in Elmira, New York. Living here in Elmira is a lot different than what I am used to at home. People call Elmira a “city,” but it is nothing like the city that I live in. In Boston, there are constantly people out roaming the streets no matter what time it is. Going in downtown Boston is very fun to do because it is full of excitement with restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and hotels. Downtown Boston is approximately five minutes from my house if you are traveling in a car. Here at Elmira there is no “night life,” except on campus, so it was a drastic change for me when I came here.

Changing the environments that I lived in was very different for me. There is a lot more organization on campus with recycling and other things, but I still don’t participate in it. I wish I could get myself to do it and I probably could if someone enforced it, but I just throw things out in the regular trash out of habit. I never really cared about the environment because of where I grew up and nothing was ever mandated. These problems in the environment recently showed up due to advocators trying to make a difference. I feel like Americans are very content with the way that they live and they become too lazy to help the environment. Even with a simple change such as recycling, most Americans cannot seem to keep up with it as an every day routine. I think that if it these changes were mandatory in each community then people would participate in things such as recycling. Recycling is a good habit to get into because it allows us to use the same materials over again.