Going Green

Global warming and environmental movement have been active for the past decades, but the buzz of going green has never been louder before. More people are becoming aware of the crisis that our beloved planet is facing now. Climate changes, natural disasters, animal extinction and behavior change are obviously happening more frequently and radically.

The common perception of going green for some people are recycling and organic products. Yes, those two things are fairly easy to adopt on our daily activity. Recycling is simple yet powerful in reducing the amount of trash that will buried on landfill. Moreover, the papers, cans, plastics, and bottles that we recycle, it can be used again for something else. So those products have more than 1 lives to serve us, and by using more of recycled items, we can reduce the production of papers, cans, plastics, etc. I am really glad that more and more teachers and parents are teaching their kids the importance of recycling. Once recycling becomes part of their daily life, they will do that for the rest of their lives.

Organic food, I think this movement is great, but I am not really fond of it. I understand why organic food is more expensive, it requires different kinds of treatement to plants and animals to grow them organically. Maybe once government rules out that everything should be organic (like they do to digital TV), the price will be cheaper and everyone will be healthier. But until then, only little percent of population is actually consuming and growing organic food. Moreover, some organic products require special packaging, which is more plastics are used during the production, shipping, and storing.

I know plastic is a big part of our lives nowadays. From food storage container to diaper, from shampoo bottle to hanger, from supermarket to hospital. Have you ever seen plastic ads, where it shows the importance of plastic in medical producedures? I know some of plastics' usages are irreplacable. But, there are still a lot of things that we can replace plastics with. To put simply, stop using plastics when you don't need to. For example, stop using straw. Don't use straw when drinking soda from can, don't use straw when drinking water from cup. It's just that simple. By reducing the consumption of straw, the production will go down, thus less plastics are produced. The next one is stop using plastic forks, plastic spoons, paper plates, and paper/plastic cups.

Another idea: reduce limousine usage. Limousine is usually used for parties, special events, or just showing off. But the thing is, limousines have very low mpg. So I propose use limousine only if you have enough people to maximize the capacity. Don't use limousine for 15 mins ride and only 2 people in the car.

Next idea is a little radical, and some people might hate me for saying this, but racing should be banned. I am not a big fan for race (F1, NASCAR, GP, etc), nor I know much about them, but I know one thing for sure, they are burning massive amount of fuels. Imagine how much gasoline can be saved without those racing cars and motorcycles. As I said, this might upset some people who love race sports. But I just can't help to say my opinion.