Environment Protection Is Everyone's Concern

The earth is the only livable planet ever known so far. This is a place where we, next generations, side by side with other creatures, hope to live properly,decently, and healthily. This is a place of our hopes, today and in the future. The question is : Does this planet have the resilience to bear all kinds of burdens and exploitations created by its dwellers, specially human beings, and support their needs of living for as long as the existence of the universe ?. Human beings play central role in determining the earth's face, whether it is well conserved or becomes deteriorated. Taking part in environment protection is not necessarily to do with sophisticated-organized institutions, every single person can do simple things to show their awareness in environment protection.

There are some simple, practical, and educative activities which can involve common people's participation in environment protection. School and family are two elements through which the actions can be introduced and implemented, in this case teachers and parents are expected to be knowledgeable in related areas for environment protection so that they can give guidance,  encouragement as well as become models to students and family members about how to implement the actions.

Basically people's participation in environment protection are divided in 3 actions which is known as 3-R : Reduce,  Reuse and Recycle.

So much space in our surrounding has been occupied for garbage dump. To minimize thrash we dump into environment, we should :

• Always prioritize on buying products with less packaging. Logically two benefits we can get if we buy products with less packing layers : We dump less waste and the product we purchase should be cheaper than other products of the same specification and quality.
• It is wiser to borrow than to buy something that you are not going to use very often.
• Making compost at home. Start a composting program at home which uses organic waste from your kitchen. There is practical guidance in making compost from kitchen waste in this hub :

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-Compos-Out-ouf-Your-Kitchen-Garbage

There are at least two benefits of household composting program :

It's good for your soil in the yard and you lessen dumping waste into your bin.

• No one denies that gasoline-fueled vehicles contribute a lot in air pollution. There are some actions you can do to decrease air pollution caused by gas consumption:

       Bike to work or to school if possible.

       If you have to use a car, carpooling with friends is very recommended.

       Taking train or bus.

       Walking.

At some areas in my city, car pooling offers mutual benefits for both the car owner as well as for the passengers. The car owner gets some money for toll fee, gas and service from the passengers and those passengers enjoy transports which are more comfortable than if they have to take public transport.

• Read electronic news (enews) and magazines (emagazines) on the internet instead of reading conventional newspaper and magazines. Reading enews or emagazines means no paper used to print the news and we participate in decreasing/preventing deforestation. Also ask your vendors and your credit card issuers to send their bills through emails instead of paper-consuming mails.
  

• Save energy : turn off lamps and other electronic equipments when they are not used. Keeping electronic things in stand-by mode also use around 20% of their electricity consumption, so totally switch them off is better if you don't use them for hours.
• Use water efficiently. Use less water for washing cars and for watering garden by using water sprinkler or sprayer. Turn off the faucet  while you brush your teeth . I don't drain the water I use for washing my hands but keep it in plastic container so that I can use it for watering plants and flowers.                                                           .
  

Reuse means try to use things more than once instead of throwing them away.

• Bring cloth sacks when you go shopping instead of using or asking new plastic or paper bags. Cloth sacks are practical and can be used again and again.
  
• Using reusable plastic lunch box as your lunch container instead of paper or styrofoam boxes is a very good way in preventing us from dumping more waste to environment. 
• Some activities in reusing old things can be fun and educative. Shoe boxes, biscuit cans and boxes, soft drink bottles, milk boxes can be changed into many functional arts and crafts which have added and economy values. You can explore your imaginations and creativity in their creations.
  

• Decent used clothes, toys, furniture, school bags, and shoes which you don't want anymore can be donated to other people, specially to needy ones. You can give them to relatives, friends, or you can even hold a garage sale.
  

• Use writing paper on both sides.
• Store food in reusable container.
  

Recycle is to make something new out of old things (waste). There are some environmental benefits we can get from recycling activities including less waste we throw away to the bin, reduce air and water pollution caused by waste incineration and landfill. 

So, in recycling old items like newspaper, paper bags, soda cans, plastic bottles are put through a process which make them change  into new products like office paper, furniture, new shopping paper bags, etc.

To support recycling actions you can do your own possible recycle like making fancy papers, gift boxes and many more   from old paper, including newspaper.

You can also put your old newspaper and plastics in recycling bins before the collector brings them to recycle center  in your town.

Another action to show your participation in this program is collect your old paper in your own temporary storage. After it reaches certain volume, you can call the collector and sell the paper on the negotiable price that you agree.

There are door-to-door collectors in my housing complex who diligently look for people who want to sell their old items. Those collectors have ceiling prices for every item they buy, so that they'll try to negotiate at lower until the maximum ceiling price depends on the goods condition.

Wandering collectors then bring those old goods in their cart to resell them. Reselling is normally possible for goods which need minor repair but still functional, and for papers and other scraps they'll bring them to bigger collectors who have set agreed prices for every item they receive from door-to-door collectors. Besides paper, mainly newspaper, collectors are also interested in old car batteries, plastic bottles, and metals.

Off course you can sell your scraps for better price if you're willing to bring them directly to bigger collector.

There is an interesting activity which is accidentally profitable for environmental protection when people in the city exchange old goods and scraps for ornamental fish. The fish which can be swapped are normally of children's favorite like goldfish and manfish. They can exchange a one-litter-size bottle with one fish inside plastic bag with aerated water in it.

This kind of scrap collector will sell those bottles back to the users like soya sauce factory, or sell them to  main collectors.

If making crafts is your cup of tea, you can also recycle old paper and scraps into many creations. I've tried this fun activity with my daughter and succeeding with some pencil holders made from plastic bottle, photo frame from cardboard, tissue box from shoe box, calligraphy from milk package, animal figures from soft drink bottles, and many more which some of them have been posted in my hubs too.