Did you know that you can make clothes out of plastic bottles. Who would think that something hard and sharp when cut could be turned into something comfortable. Eco-fi is a company that takes old plastic bottles and turns them into soft synthetic yarns and fabrics. They start buy breaking up they bottles into tiny flakes and then heat it into a liquid and then turn it into yarn. I thought this was a very interesting way to use old plastic bottles to create a useful product.(http://eartheasy.com/wear_ecospun.htm).
There are other companies that are also trying hard to help the environment while still making apparel and fashion accessories. Marks and Spencer, a large retailer in the UK, has started practicing sustainable alternatives to try and off balance the high consumption hurting the environment. They are also making conditions safer for their workers and more humane for animals. They are also trying to encourage their customers to only wash loads of laundry when the load is full. I think that this company is trying to successfully improve the quality of life for everyone. However, I also feel that one company doing this is not going to help the environment very much; it is a start though. I think that if one company starts this than that will lead to more companies trying to implement these policies as well. The more companies that try these things I think will significantly help the environment and a lot more people would be happier and safer because of it.
If more companies and people feel the need to do their part to help the planet than I think we can make an impact on the damage that has been done. If people continue to keep consuming without worrying about the consequences than I think that we might end up with a lot more landfills. Landfills filled with belongings that someone else might have wanted, and clothes that someone else could have worn.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Big Picture: what can be done to save the future
Do you ever like to think about childhood memories? There are times when I think back to when I was a child and going to the zoo and seeing Polar Bears. Also about seeing all the beautiful pictures of glaciers and ice. It makes me sad to think that possibly my children and most likely my grandchildren will not get to experience these things that seem so common to us now. The children of the future will only know stories and pictures of things we thought would always be here. Polar Bears will be to them what Woolly Mammoths are to us...A thing of our ancestors and a thing of the past.
I knew that things in the ecosystems had changed rapidly in recent years but I had no idea how fast until I read Ecosystems and Human Well-Being by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The destruction didn't become so rapid until around the 1950's and has only increased since. I had never before heard that converting land into cropland was a problem; also, that rivers and dams are now holding 3 to 6 times as much water as before. The MA says that it is likely for damages to increase even more rapidly in the next fifty tears as well.
A book, titled A New Green History of the World, has a chapter about Easter Island that also fits into this subject. A small Isolated tribe used everything they could find in their small surrounding to survive. They eventually used everything until they had to resort to cannibalism just to survive. It would take several centuries for humans to do this to the world, but our ridiculous amount of consumption could leave us in the same boat eventually unless we all attempt to reverse the damage that we have caused.
I believe that the time has come and gone to save the Polar Bears, but I do believe we have time to save the planet if we can work together as a society to reverse the damage humans have caused to the planet. According to global warming-prevention.com there are 20 things that we can do to reduce bad effects of global warming. I wont list all of them but I will list the ones that are easiest for everyone to do. We can drive less and carpool when possible, use nontoxic cleaning supplies, decrease air travel, consider buying an electric or hybrid vehicle, buy energy efficient light bulbs like CFLs or LEDs, choose energy efficient appliances, plant a tree, unplug electronics when they aren't being used, and cut out buying heavily packaged items to decrease garbage. Even if we can't reverse the effects of global warming I believe that if everyone can at least reduce a few of these things during their week then we can preserve what we have now and not loose anything else that seems everyday to us now.
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