Go Green or Go Home

Wasting the Earth is an epidemic. We, as people, have turned against Mother Nature and formed our own alliance, stealing what she has offered and betraying her trust. We were given air to breathe, water to drink, organisms to eat, land to grow, and the sunrise to enjoy; what we have returned is polluted air, dirty water, commercialized overproduction, raped land, and stars we can no longer see. Besides the fact that we have degraded our planet by taking all that is left, we have also twisted materials together to form new hideous inventions like plastics, chemicals, and other nuclear abominations that were never meant to be naturally recycled by the Earth. We have been forced to find a place to put the leftover waste or find new ways to get rid of it, causing an infinite loop of destruction that we can’t seem to get out of. The only way to end the cycle is to stop the production of these materials, which means that we must learn to coexist with business and nature.
As an Environmental Representative for Southern Methodist University, I have discovered that many students don’t know how to live sustainably or don’t know how to reduce, reuse, or recycle. Mostly it is because of the lack of education provided by their parents or their community that don’t demonstrate how or what to recycle. Other times it is because of the lack of convenience to live eco-friendly because recycling bins are scarce or there are no recycling plants around. If we were able to have recycling bins next to every trash can, students would mostly choose to just throw their bottles in the correct container because of its convenient location. Also, we need to educate people about the proper recycling tecniques by labeling what item goes into what container. To sum it up, if the material has a number from 1 to 7 in a recycle triangle, recycle it; otherwise, throw it away if it is food products or used napkins. Many recyclables need to be washed out too if it has leftover wet food stuck inside of it. If young people are educated now about living sustainably, they would be able to expose their children to recycling or low-waste living at a young age, and we would alleviate the disproportioned consumption of the Earth’s resources by improving how we can coexist and even open up the job market for future generations on green living.