My Lifestyle and the Environment
By Keisha Kincaid
We all make lifestyle choices that have significant impacts on people and on the natural environment. Lately, I have become more aware of the ways in which the seemingly small choices of my life have wide-ranging effects on the world around me. What we eat, wear, buy, and do affects the world around us in ways that we don’t know. With that in mind, I made some conscious choices in my life in order to reduce my impact on climate change.
In recent years, I have been buying clothes from thrift and consignment shops rather than from expensive clothes stores at the mall. I probably buy fifteen to twenty items of clothing a year at thrift stores. At first, the reason I did this was that, as a college student, I could not afford expensive designer clothes. However, in reading news articles, I discovered evidence that showed me another benefit: I decrease the harmful effects synthetic fibers have on the environment when I buy resale items. In purchasing clothes that have been “recycled” by being donated to a thrift shop, I help lessen the amount of fabric produced with harmful chemicals, and I keep these synthetic fabrics out of landfills. Not only does the textile industry’s chemical output contribute to pollution, but shipping clothes from the faraway countries in which they are produced contributes to the “carbon footprint”: carbon dioxide or other carbon compounds produced by burning fossil fuels. Buying recycled clothes lessens the carbon footprint of clothes produced on other continents.
What I eat, unfortunately, does not prove as environmentally sustainable as what I wear. Some of my friends have become vegetarian or vegan; however, I have not yet been able to change the way I eat in order to eliminate animal protein from my diet. Eating meat contributes to our carbon footprint because of the enormous amount of energy required to produce feed for animals, to slaughter animals, and to ship meat to stores all over the country. One of my goals is to lessen the detrimental impact of my eating habits by at least cutting down fifty percent on the amount of animal protein I consume. I will do this by eating meat every other day. This change will not only contribute to my health, but it will also contribute to the health of the natural environment.
Finally, when I buy clothes or food, I put my purchases in reusable shopping bags. I use these to cut down on the number of plastic bags that go into landfills. Many people do not realize the tremendous negative impact of plastic bags on the natural world. Recently, I read about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” an island of floating plastic goo in the Northern Pacific Ocean. This island, twice the size of Texas, comes from the enormous amount of plastic debris discarded by humans; this debris gets caught up in the vortex of ocean currents, forming a large patch of plastic bits that are not biodegradable. This garbage patch harms animal and plant life in the ocean. Animals get trapped in the debris or mistake it for food. The garbage blocks out light and leaches harmful chemicals into the water. By using reusable, recyclable shopping bags (themselves recycled from plastic shopping bags), I cut down on the number of plastic shopping bags that wind up in the ocean and other natural habitats. Also, I have encouraged other people to use these alternative shopping bags.
Because I now realize the large environmental impacts of small lifestyle choices, I have changed other practices so that I have a smaller carbon footprint. For example, I have started riding my bicycle to campus (a distance of about five miles), I have started seeking local produce from farmers’ markets, and I have petitioned my apartment complex to offer recycling to the residents. These choices decrease the carbon footprint I make by walking my own daily path. We all have to start out small: making the most positive choices we can in our own lives and encouraging others to join us in making these small but important differences. If we all join together, the impact will be huge; we can protect our environment for future generations.
Developed by The NROC Project. Copyright ©2015 Monterey Institute for Technology and Education