A lot of our daily waste can be avoided. And the steps we can take to reduce waste can both save money and reduce our burden on the environment.
Everything we buy uses energy and creates waste, from white board markers and textbooks to microwaves and minivans. By buying fewer, more efficient and less environmentally damaging items and making them last, we can not only reduce our emissions but save money too.
While it seems obvious that all our stuff has to come from somewhere and go somewhere, it is surprisingly easy to forget when the process of making and breaking down is so far removed from our experience. We don’t see the logging and mining, energy consumption or chemical and plastic pollution through production and transport. And when we buy something we rarely think about how we are gong to dispose of it.
We will consider cost and quality, but not what it took to make it and what will happen when we throw it away.
QUICK ACTION LIST
✓ Refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair and only then recycle
✓ Cut out single-use items (plastic cutlery, paper cups, bottled water, cling film, balloons and plastic wrappers)
✓ Take on the challenge of a zero waste week or longer
✓ Refresh your marker pens!
✓ Give unneeded items new life by donating or freecycle-ing
✓ Switch to recycled paper and use less (Paperless teaching, switch to digital brochures, reduce photocopying)
✓ See A Charter for a Greener Classroom
More coming soon…
We are researching more tips on how to reduce improve our environmental impact by consumption and waste. We will add more information to this page soon! We welcome your experiences, plans, questions and ideas any time.
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