By George P. Nassos
There is no question that the environment is degrading and more needs to be done to improve it. Here are a few suggestions that can be made by individuals or recommendations for a large entity to implement.
A pizza container may be used for as little as ten minutes, the time it takes for you to bring it from the restaurant to your home. Then it may not be recyclable if it is greasy or even if it is recyclable, the disposal process can be costly particularly when you add in the cost of producing the pizza container, not to mention the consumption of the natural resources. Why not provide returnable pizza containers? Fortunately, this is now beginning to happen thanks to a German company, Pizzycle, and used by Domino’s and Pizza Hut – in Germany.
Most hotel rooms provide small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash and/or skin lotion. Each bottle may be partially used and then disposed of, taken home by the renter or sent to a community center. Why not provide a large refillable container in the bathroom so the occupant uses only what is needed and provides no waste.
There is unnecessary idling of automobiles when a commuter train is stopped at a station, and the gates are down at the next street. Perhaps the train engineer can be given the option to override the automatic signal to lower the gates if the train is stopping at the station. When the train is ready to depart, then the gates can be lowered.
Something very similar is the problem of driving to an intersection with a red light, yet there are no cars crossing the street. The authorities of the traffic signals should install sensors so that a red light on a main road is actuated only if there are cars waiting to cross the main road. This will reduce gas consumption, carbon emissions, congestion and driver’s stress.
Since we will be approaching Christmas in a few months, you may want to buy a tree to decorate your home. Should you buy a real one that was recently cut down, or do you buy an artificial one that you can use for many years? Your decision will probably be based on which one is more environmentally friendly. How about obtaining one from a tree farm with its roots in a large ball. After you use it for three to four weeks, return it to the farm to be replanted and used again next year – easily the most environmentally friendly.
Again, at Christmas time you may wish to send greetings to your friends and relatives. Almost everyone sends out Christmas cards that are either preprinted with your name or you sign them yourself. Some of the preprinted cards may also end up with preprinted address labels. This means that you can even have someone else prepare these cards for you – not very personal. Why not create a short video to send the greeting verbally via email or text? This is much cheaper since you don’t have to buy Christmas cards or postage stamps. This is much more environmentally friendly, much cheaper and meets the three components for effective communication. The recipient hears the words, hears the sender’s voice and can observe body language. If you send the greetings to a foreign country, you can also produce the video in some other language.
If you want to reduce carbon emissions, another way is to have your school, company, house of worship, or any other group obtain an account with UCapture (UCapture – Offset your carbon footprint, for free.) This online company has an arrangement with over 25,000 other online companies that offer products and/or services for sale. When you purchase their products, a portion of the bill is returned to UCapture as a commission. UCapture takes 67% of that commission and invests it in carbon emission reduction projects around the world. The remaining 33% is split between UCapture administration and your group that created the account. Once you have an account, the entire process is passive. You will be reducing carbon emissions anytime you make an online purchase.