The amount of waste in this world is truly staggering. EPA.GOV states that 80% of experts predict water shortages within the next decade, but at the same time the average family alone waste over 9,000 gallons a year. The fact that we can so easily let precious resources be carelessly spent when there is such dire need in other communities in addition to depleting stockpiles is not good practice for maintaining a sustainable and ethical world. It would be silly of me to simply gripe about how we all need to be better collectively without first owning up to what I myself must do to cover my own tracks. If at the end of the day I don’t put in the effort to be less of net burden on the planet, than it is clear I must take a sober look at how I can fix the problem that is myself before expecting the world to step up and mitigate catastrophe. There are many ways to impact your community and promote positive change, and one of the most simple and effective is to be a good example to others. I believe that if I can inform those around me of the benefits of living sustainably, then I can inspire myself and others to make conscious decisions to reduce our harm inflicted on the planet.
My goal in the coming days is to demonstrate specifically how much we could repurpose and save on a household level compared to how we were living before. I will do this by starting a compost initiative to repurpose food scraps, calling attention to our usage of water, electricity, and food to find the difference between our necessary consumption and what is excess, and demonstrating how responsible household recycling practices can make a significant impact in cutting down on the waste we send to landfills. We won’t have hard data to showcase what we can cut out for water and electricity until at least a whole month of changed behavior has been undergone, but I will make an attempt in the meantime make quantitative assessments on how much we can stand to lose in our usage. Placing an importance on recycling and composting will showoff practices that not only dispose of our waste but also utilize them in the most responsible way. My intent is not to uproot anyone’s lifestyle, but instead show how small efforts can accumulate into big changes. The process of becoming more sustainable can be both education and pain-free if I take an approach to make critical tweaks appropriately. I can prove to my family that it’s easy to make changes that can so simply ease our burden on the Earth, then they will hopefully be encouraged to influence others to be more environmentally considerate.