There are many ways of caring for the environment
Around the home, you can do things like recycling your rubbish, taking care of food waste and being aware of water and energy consumption.
Every little thing counts.
The more I researched into ways to reduce our footprint on the Earth, the more I realised that most of it doesn't seem that hard to do. Here's a few great (and very simple) things to do that help us care for our Earth:
- Don't buy single-use plastics and recycle wherever you can. It's super important to be aware of what you consume and how you deal with it afterwards. Rubbish piles are building up around the world and the less we use, and the more we recycle, the better hope we have for keeping a cleaner planet.
- Shop locally, shop organically. This not only brings the money back into your local ecosystem and supports more local businesses (meaning more jobs for your sons and daughters, more diversity in whats on offer) and buy organic if possible. Buying organic food means you have less chemicals and less production on your veges.
- Understand expiration dates and make sure you consume your food before the cutoff date. You'll save money and save the environment!
- Take your meal home after eating out at restaurants. Instead of that food being wasted, you'll have a delicious lunch tomorrow.
- Learn to love leftovers. Just by eating the food you've cooked the night before, you save money on the next meal you might have bought out, and you reduce the food waste you throw away.
- Create a compost pile/bucket. There are heaps of ways to make compost buckets, from bins next to the sink to backyard constructions. Even if you make some compost and use it on your pot plants at home, you're recycling food waste.
- Keep your garden or green-space chemical free. It's important to look at the use of herbicides and pesticides when maintaining a garden, and cut down where you can. More chemical usage means more production needed to make them, more contamination of air and waterways (especially if your garden drains off to the roadside gutter (some this gets carried away to the oceans).
- Be aware of water consumption. Wash dishes in the sink (without keeping the water running for each plate, cup and spoon) and be aware of how long your showers are. Research proves that using your shower is one of the biggest energy consumptions in the average household.
- Reduce your carbon footprint by thinking about how to travel more efficiently; share the car ride to work and use public transport when it's available. Overseas travel is also a big environmental factor, so keep that in mind.
In business too, we can adopt models and strategies that care for our Planet
At Maths Australia, we've researched the most environmentally friendly way of printing the workbooks for the Math-U-See program. Currently, our printers are using specific protocols that include several environmental positives:
- Australian made and Carbon Neutral paper
- The Paper Mill is ISO 14001 and PEFC Certified, plus the pulping process is EFC free.
- ISO 14001 is the International Standard that specifies requirements for an effective environmental management system (EMS)
- The paper is Elemental chlorine free (ECF). This is a technique that uses chlorine dioxide for bleaching the wood pulp. It does not use elemental chlorine gas during the bleaching process and prevents the formation of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds and carcinogens.
- The printing centre has a Solar Panel system that provides up to 70% of power usage, sustainably.
- All toner waste is recycled though Close the Loop and certification is updated on a regular basis.
- All waste paper is recycled through Visy Recycling.
- The printer and other machinery suppliers have a recycling programme in place for any equipment that is no longer needed when upgrades occur.
Also, we have updated the following within our company procedures:
- We're now offering many of our training sessions virtually and creating video resources, which helps to reduce our carbon footprint.
- We've been working hard behind the scenes to build an entire members portal into this website. We've transitioned our DVDs into online videos for members, and documents like Completion Certificates are print-your-own now (because not everyone wants the certificate).
- We've converted our placement tests into an online automated system so that you don't need to download and print all the different placement tests anymore.
You can see the full page regarding our Environmental Procedures here
It's a very worthy discussion to have, about how we can further protect and care for our Planet Earth. Sometimes it can be a delicate balance between home life, our needs/wants/desires, where we live, what we do for work, manufacturing efficiency/cost and the paramount importance of reducing our carbon & waste footprint, but it's those small things that really make a difference.
Even if one small thing is done, the world becomes a better place. Let us know your favourite environmentally friendly tips in the comments below!
The Team at Maths Australia