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I'm Looking Through You |
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Lately, I've noticed how wasteful people are with paper. People simply are unaware of the fact that it is so simple to recycle. I think they are (1) uninformed and (2) consider it inconvenient. I mean, from many people's perspective it is so much easier to litter or to just throw everything into one large receptacle. However, I want to change this outlook, I want to make recycling easy and accessible. I've come to realize that people are willing to do things if you make it simple for them. If they don't have to do any work or commit any time they will be willing to help you in your cause. As long as its easy. Even though its sort of horrible that people aren't right off the bat willing to do it, I think its ok as long as in the end the same result is achieved. A cleaner, less wasteful community, city, state, nation, world.
I'm going to try to begin by setting up a recycling program at my school, and hopefully my goal is to eventually set one up at each of the school's in my district. I am planning on becoming an active participant in Ecology Club at my school in order to get students who also share a common interest to come together and really make a difference. I joined the club this past year, but it was really horribly organized and no one really seemed interested in taking any action.
Here is a website I was checking out:
Keep America Beautiful!
http://www.kab.org
it includes references to any local set up organizations by state. It also has info on the Great American CleanUp and local setups of that project. If you can't find that project already set up in an area near you, you can find out how to set up your own. I'm planning on ordering a $7.50 booklet on easily setting up a Recycling program at your school and local businesses.
I think that recycling is especially important in places like work and school. It is definately easier to recycle at home when you yourself can walk outside and throw all your paper and plastic products in your recycle trash can that you wheel out to your street. But what about at work and school? All you do is throw your trash into the trashcan they provide. Consider the fact that at schools and offices paper is used everyday by everybody! Practically everything that is thrown in the trashcan is recyclable except for maybe food! In my eyes, the main trashcan should just be the recyclable bin and whatever minimal trash that isn't recyclable can be put into a less important trashcan. Kids throw away tons of paper each day at school from school projects, to homework, to tests, tons of paper!!!! This recycle bin can be used for scratch paper so when kids just need to do a real quick practice activity or write something unimportant down they can grab a useless paper that has only been used on one side for some three week old spelling test that the teacher has already recorded the grade for. Offices throw away tons of paper, faxes, invoices, email printouts, bulletins. Their trashcans are 90% paper. I hope that by setting up these programs in areas around me, people will be saving a lot of wasted materials that can be reused!
I also think that it is important to set up gardens and plants in schools. My elementary school constructed a garden and a cactus area. This is good for numerous reasons, students can learn about the science of nature, learn the importance of it, and learn how to take care of plants. It can give them a hobby, an interest, teach them how to nuture something. Its exciting to consider that you took care of a plant so well that it produced delicious fruit! My dad is a huge gardener and our entire backyard is filled with organic fruit and vegetables. I can name dozens of different plants that we have in our backyard from peaches, plums, oranges, lemons, peppers, beans, corn, starfruit, bananas, cucumbers, and tons more. I think that its great to teach kids to take care of these things. My high school on the other hand has a horribly ugly campus. There are no plants in the front of the school and new construction has ended all interesting trees that my biology teacher said they used to use for a tree walk. I think it would really beautify our campus if they had students plant things. Really our school needs a really good bulletin board where tons of things can be posted on it announcing different community service activities to get kids involved in great things such as these. High school kids are the worst. They just go to the movies and never give a second thought to contributing. I understand you can expect much from them, but I'm sure there are kids out there that don't even know they can even do anything about it. I hope that next year I can really make a difference and show them that there are ways to help out and to make a change.
What really needs to be done is awareness. A bulletin would help and more announcements. I hope to do a ton of research so that I can provide kids with some kind of knowledge about these topics.
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