All across America, people are taking up the call to “go green”; preserve the environment and save our planet. The call has been heard everywhere from the street corner to the office building. Now, college students, it’s your turn!
There are a lot of easy ways to go green everywhere from your classroom to your dorm room. Here are fifteen suggestions for how you can go green on your college campus!
Ride (and Share) Your Bike
Many students, especially on larger campuses, may drive their cars to class. Or, on smaller campuses, and campuses close to local cities and/or towns, students may drive into town for a fun day-trip. Instead of hitting the road in a car, try riding your bike! You’ll waste less energy and gas, and get some exercise to boot! Another option is to “share” your bike. Make a pact with a group of friends-friends you really trust-to share your bike. Share the combination for your lock, or have everyone chip in for a shared lock, so everyone can know the combination. This allows you and your friends to share one bike and use it to get around campus as any of you pleases! Just make sure the last person who rides it brings it back to wherever you’re supposed to store your bike.
Carpool
Another option for getting to town or simply getting off campus for a while is carpooling. Agree to split the cost of gas among whoever is riding in the driver’s car, so the driver doesn’t bear the burden of paying for your ride. If you decide carpooling is an option you and your friends can go along with, make sure you pick drivers who have big cars. Try to pick drivers who can fit the most people in their cars, be it comfortably or a little tight. You want to try to minimize the number of cars you need to take on trips, even with a lot of people.
Recycle!
The number one thing for you to recycle in college is paper. College students write papers all the time, and as soon as the project is finished it’s tempting to just toss it into the trash can. Don’t! Grab a paper bag or empty box and start collecting your paper. Use that paper as scratch paper, or to take notes on. Make origami animals. Do what you want, but don’t just throw it away. The same applies for your plastic items. Most schools provide recycling receptacles for your bottles and cans; make a point of using them. If your school doesn’t have anywhere for you to recycle, start asking your school to consider investing in recycling bins, so you can help make your whole school a little greener!
Reuse!
It’s easy to reuse your stuff. Reuse empty bottles as flower vases and paperclip holders. Make you old shoe boxes into storage units for old assignments, photographs, cards, and more. Turn an empty can into a pencil holder. You can even recycle old CDs as light catchers, or even as a mini-mirror! Think of creative ways to reuse stuff you might have otherwise thrown away, or reuse items as things you were thinking of buying, instead of spending more cash on more stuff.
Instead of buying cup after cup of coffee or tea, or bottle after bottle of water, iced tea, or other drinks, get yourself a good coffee mug and water bottle. You can simply reuse an old water bottle to refill with your favorite cold drinks. You might also consider investing in a good Nalgene bottle, which is both cheap and somewhat stylish for toting your drinks in. For hot drinks, consider a portable coffee mug with a lid, or a thermos. This way, you’re not constantly using disposable cups!
Turn Off the Overhead Lights
Instead of using those obnoxious overhead dorm lights, try opening the blinds to let in natural light. For evening hours, consider investing in a desk lamp. You might also consider a floor lamp. For either lamp, use fluorescent light bulbs, which are great energy savers. Be sure before you buy that a compact fluorescent light bulb will fit in your lamp; otherwise you’ll wind up with great energy saving bulbs and nothing to put them in! Another option that is popular among college students is using Christmas lights instead of overhead lights. Invest in some LED Christmas lights, which are not only beautiful, but also energy-saving.
Use a Binder
Instead of using separate notebooks for all of your classes, consider using a refillable three-ring binder. You can buy one, along with some loose leaf lined paper, at any office supply store, or even a craft store. Buy separators to mark off a separate section for each of your classes. Using a binder is a great way to cut back on paper; it’s already hard enough to fill a whole notebook with notes, and now you won’t have wasted half a notebook at the end of the semester! It also helps you cut back on the amount of stuff you have to shove into your backpack, which means you can carry a smaller bag that, thanks to a little less weight, should wear out a little slower (saving you from the need to buy a new one anytime soon)!
Though some may think this is a tip more for the ladies, a nice tote is becoming more and more popular among lots of people, including the gentlemen. It doesn’t have to be a purse; you can buy recyclable bags from cinch bangs to sling bags, even purses and messenger bags. A tote bag, whatever your fashion, is great for carrying your books to class, clothes to the gym, or lunch for a trip. They are also great for shopping, instead of using store paper or plastic shopping bags. Check out sites like ThePromoShop.com or ReusableBags.com for great deals on recycled-product bags.
When you’re in college, thrift shops go by another name: trendy! You’ll never find better bargains on things you need than at a good thrift shop. Particularly for those young folks who are more trendy and/or artsy, shops like Goodwill or the Salvation’s Army offer great mix-and-match patterns and designs to pick from. And it’s not just the clothes! You can find lots of fun stuff to decorate your dorm room or apartment with, gifts for birthdays, and more. And you can do more than shop; try gathering up your old clothes and items you no longer want and donating them before you shop. Even if you don’t wind up buying from a thrift store, you’re at least giving back before spending on yourself, and replacing items instead of adding more to your personal pile!
Swap!
For some college students, the temptation at the end of the semester is to do one of two things with their unwanted items: sell them, or toss them. But there’s a third option too few college students think about: trading! Trade your text books with a friend who has the books you need for the next semester. Or, look online for a book-swap program like PaperBackSwap.com or BookMooch.com, to trade your old books-even text books-for something new. You can trade CDs you’ve burned onto your computer to friends, as well as DVDs, and even furniture. Of course, another option is to sell these items, but swapping is a nice way to show the world-and your classmates-that you’re thinking about others more than you’re thinking about making a buck!
Turn Off the Water
True, in college, it’s great to have unlimited access to all the hot showers you want. But instead of taking advantage of extra-long showers, turn off the water in between your shower activities. Turn the water off while you wash your hair or condition. Brush your teeth in the shower to avoid running the sink after time in the shower. Try timing your shower so you spend less time in there; some students will play a favorite CD, and decide to shut off the water after a certain track. Some college students at my alma mater made an extreme decision to avoid flushing the toilet until it was absolutely necessary (i.e., until either the bowl would overflow if they tried to flush too much toilet paper, or if certain things stank too much to stand)! Nobody is saying you should take things to that extreme . . . but nobody’s saying you shouldn’t, either!
Instead of cranking up the heat as soon at the temperature drops below 70, turn down-or even off-the heat altogether. Use blankets to bundle up when it gets cold. Try to only use the heater when it’s absolutely too cold outside not to use it. Don’t avoid the heat at the expense of your health. But also don’t waste the heat in deference to your absolute comfort. We can all stand to be a little colder than we’d like to admit; even turning the heat down to the minimum will help decrease the amount of wasted energy coming from your room. Convincing your friends to do the same could even help your dorm become an energy-saver’s haven!
It’s Getting Hot in Here
Turn off the AC, or only use it when you’re in the room and it’s too hot to tolerate. Just like with the heater, keeping the AC on just to be utterly comfortable is a big waste of energy. You’d be surprised at how much energy a campus could save just by reducing the usage of air conditioning. If you can stand being on the beach on a 90-degree summer day in July, you can probably do without air conditioning in April!
Here’s a little factoid for you: setting the washing machine to “Hot” does not you’re your clothes will get extra-clean! In fact, you might shrink them. But that’s a little besides the point (outside of trying to convince you that a cold-wash is a great option). Washing your clothes in cold water uses a lot less electricity. Using less energy means producing less CO2, which means a little cold water on your part could help save a tree or two! If that’s not enough of a reason for you to switch to a cold-wash, consider the fact that washing in cold water will also cause less heat damage to your clothes, so they’ll last longer.
There are many, many more ways to go green on your campus or in your life in general. But remember: every little thing you do to decrease your energy consumption, and everything you do to avoid waste, is a step towards preserving the planet we all love! Find small ways to go green in your life on campus, and enjoy a greener world!
