new years was just 2 weeks ago. 14 days into 2011 and we have already heard of so many natural disasters since December with the snowstorm in UK & New York, flood happening in Australia, ice caps are melting are a very fast rate, land slide in Brazil and personally in Malaysia it has been raining and raining and raining (not that that is not a good thing since it cools the temperature) but its ridiculous to see mother nature calling out to us.
WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!
i think its all over the place, everyone specially companies & organizations are doing their part of CSR, cut down plastic bags, save the trees, treeplanting campaign yadda yadda yadda…and you know what? i think its just bullshit. they do it one time, you and i see it, 6 months later, the campaign is forgotten. they spend money, lets have family fun day, built up tents, treeplanting activity, hire some celebrity to endorse it…all these events EATS UP ENERGY and kills more trees. its pretty ironic isnt it?
my main main main concern and i think the bigger culprits are FACTORIES, LOGGING INDUSTRY and the non-stop ever building HOUSES & APARTMENTS. any piece of land available, they see business opportunity.
i can do my part and not use plastic bag, but hey, one bulldozer drives in, cleans up the grass and tress, thats probably more waste than i can throw.
so heres something new i learn from TED.COM the other day, instead of the regular 3R, theres the 4th R now: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Refuse.
you should already be cutting down plastic bag usage, saving water & energy, but heres also few other pointers which you might add on…
- discourage products that has too much plastic packaging, and encourage those who uses recycled material
- buy local food products in supermarket to cut down flown-in products.
- eat less / cut off red meat
- discourage new building plans / constructions (if the world stops building for a year, i think it could make a drastic change)
- use paper cups instead of styrofoam ones
- for takeaways in malaysia, theres way too much usage of styrofoam boxes for hawkers. bring your own plate / containers!
- switch off the aircon and use the fan when possible
unfortunately, going green and choosing recycled paper packaging products definitely will cost but if you have a small family and can afford extra 1ringgit to spare to encourage, do it!
i admit, i dont even follow 100% whats been said above, but hey, at least its at the back of my head and i’ll try to work on them, even harder this year.
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adding on, i’d like to say kudos to the government for implementing a no-plastic day on every saturday, starting from selangor, and its nationwide! hoorah! and kudos to both IKEA (no plastic bags everyday) and Carrefour (for providing carton boxes at check out counters for your goods).
