How to Go Green While in College

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Millions of young adults leave to go to college every year. Many responsibilities come with living without one’s parents for the first time. One responsibility is taking care of the Earth. Since there are no parents in college to tell one to recycle, buy organic items, unplug appliances when they are not being used, and many more, many college students forget to do these simple things. Students go to college to start a new life for them, going green is a great way to do that. When a car breaks down, one can buy another. We cannot but another planet Earth, so everyone must do their part to take care of it. There are several ways to take care of the Earth, each are equally important.

Recycling can be done is many different ways. Paper is very easy to recycle in college. Every Sunday 500,000 trees are cut down to produce the newspaper, for only one day!! If everyone recycled their newspaper, we could save over 250,000,000 trees a year! Recycling one ton of paper can save enough energy to power the average American home for six months, save 7,000 gallons of water, save over three cubic yards in a landfill, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one ton of carbon equivalent (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). Even if one doesn’t recycle one’s paper, one can reuse the back for scratch paper. Another great way to save paper is to not print out a receipt from an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). Instead, choose to display one’s balance on the screen. If everyone chose to not print receipts, we could save enough paper to circle the Earth three times (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)!

Another easy way to help out the planet is to recycle water. If one leaves the water running while brushing their teeth, one wastes over four gal...

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...akes everyone working together to make a difference in the world. If only one person knew how to keep the planet safe longer, it does not help anyone. It takes everyone knowing how to help the planet in order to make a difference. College students should be an example to others. If we show others that we care, perhaps they will care also.

Works Cited
Berry, Jennifer. “The Big Issue: Plastic Bags.” Earth 911. 9 November 2009. Web. 11

November 2009.

Sanders, Robert. “Eliminating "standby" electricity loss from home appliances could save up to 25 percent on electrical bills, study shows.” Berkeley Campus News. Berkeley. Web. 5 November 2009.

United States. Environmental Protection Agency. What is Water Recycling? EPA, 18 August 2009. Web. 5 November 2009.

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