EcoLiving Ideas

By Jaime Leiman on Aug 19, 2010

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The green movement is taking over the world. Businesses are opting for alternative energy, shoppers are buying organic and people are becoming more aware. Despite this, many college students believe that opting for a sustainable lifestyle is impractical, as they cannot afford to buy local, organic products, or pay a few extra dollars a month for alternative energy sources. For example, when faced with the option of buying a dozen sustainably raised eggs for $5 from the local farmer, or a dozen industrial eggs for $1.50 from the local grocery store, college students will more often than not choose the latter. They also will more likely settle for coal and oil powered electricity, which is cheaper than wind or solar energy. Despite these two examples, there are many other cheap, affordable and eco-friendly changes students can make to go green. Here are 10 easy swaps college students and young adults can make to reduce their ecological footprint:

1. Buy Used Books, Furniture, Clothes, CDs, Artwork….
Not only does buying used books help reduce global warming, it also is cheaper than buying a new book. Along with destroying natural habitats, the paper industry is the fourth largest contributor of carbon emissions in the United States. Buying used books will help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere by slowing the rate at which new books are printed. It also will shrink the amount of waste in landfills. Buying used doesn’t have to stop there: dorm furniture and other utilities are often readily available on a college campus and can save you a lot of money. Another easy option which discourages extra garbage and reuses items, is freecycling.

2. Use Reusable Cups
Every time you use a disposable coffee cup, you contribute to global warming. Americans discard approximately 23 billion paper coffee cups and 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups each year. That’s about 200 cups per person per year. Every time you choose a reusable mug instead of a disposable cup, you are helping to reduce the hundreds of thousands of pounds of garbage in landfills. Additionally, they save the consumer money, as 200 paper cups cost significantly more than a reusable mug. Many coffee houses, such as Starbucks, also provide a discount for customers who bring their own mugs.

3. Conserve Water
Each minute the sink faucet is left on while brushing your teeth, you waste about a gallon of water. Every time you take a ten-minute shower, you use about 35 gallons of water. By taking small measures to remember to turn off the water while brushing and not to take an excessively long shower, you can reduce your carbon-impact by tenfold.

4. Turn off the Electronics
If you leave the lights, computers, televisions and radios on when you leave the room, you are wasting electricity. By remembering to turn them off, you not only conserve energy, you can also cut back a significant amount on your electric bill. If you live in a dorm and don’t have an electric bill to worry about, shutting electronics off when not using them also prolongs their lifespan. Lights less-frequently need to be changed, and computers’ batteries last longer. Also, remember to unplug your electronics from the outlets! Even when you’re not using them, keeping electronics plugged in uses energy.

5. Ditch the Plastic Bag
A plastic shopping bag can take anywhere from 15 to 1000 years to decompose. The United States alone goes through approximately 100 billion new plastic bags per year. That equals a lot of plastic bags taking up space in landfills. Due to their light weight, many plastic bags fly away from landfills, and settle in trees, storm drains and the oceans. Besides soiling our planet, approximately one million birds and 100,000 sea turtles every year die from ingesting discarded plastic bags. By investing a few dollars for a reusable bag, one can, over a lifetime, save over 22,000 plastic bags.

6. Drink Tap Water
Bottled water is no healthier or better than most tap water, and is definitely unhealthier for our planet. Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. This rate adds up to about 1.5 million tons of plastic waste in landfills per year. Plastic bottles also require approximately 47 million gallons of oil yearly to produce. By purchasing a reusable water bottle, you can easily help beautify our planet, while saving a lot of money; $1.50 for a bottle of water adds up quickly. Also, 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, and thus is exempt from FDA oversight. In contrast, tap water systems are well-regulated and often inspected for toxic chemicals.

7. Reduce Paper Waste
Paper waste is everywhere. When you sit down to dinner and use a napkin, you’re using paper. When you print an assignment for school, you’re using paper. When you print driving directions, you’re using paper. When you wrap a gift, you’re using paper. The list goes on and on. The average American uses 650 pounds of paper a year. Each year, enough paper is discarded to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City. This comes at an extreme cost. 900,000,000 trees are cut down every year to provide raw materials for paper mills. That’s about 2.5 million trees per day! Yes, paper is a valuable resource, but at the rate we’re going, we’re going to completely deplete the world of our air cleaners (trees), and contribute air pollutants in the process (energy used to create paper).
Easy steps can be taken to reduce your paper impact. Ask to e-mail assignments to professors - you’ll also save a lot of money on ink. Use both sides of the paper when printing. Purchase recycled paper. Wrap gifts with cloth or used paper - also more personal because you can decorate it! Use reusable cloth napkins. Recycling and reusing paper is both cheaper for you and healthier for the planet.

8. Go Trayless
When you go trayless in the college cafeteria, you wind up taking less food, and therefore eating and throwing away less too. For you, the broke college student trying to avoid the freshman 15, it fattens your wallet and slims your body. For the environment, it’s good for substantially cutting down on waste. By going trayless, less food winds up completely uneaten in the garbage. It also conserves water, as fewer plates need to be washed, and no trays need cleaning.

9. Buy a Set of Reusable Utensils and Dishes
40 billion disposable plastic utensils are used every year in the United States. None of these are biodegradable, and so they quickly take up space in landfills. Additionally, the manufacture of plastic utensils and paper plates uses a lot of energy and resources. By simply buying washable, reusable dishes and utensils, one can reduce their carbon impact, as well as save money on the continuous need to buy disposable products. If you MUST use disposable ones, consider buying brands that are biodegradable and compostable.

10. Bike or Walk to Class
This two-for-one swap helps the environment as well as yourself. By ditching your gasoline powered pollution-mobile for your bike instead, you’ll not only pollute less, but save money on gas while getting some exercise. With gas at around $3 a gallon, the savings will add up fast!