Week 1- Articulating your environmental philosophy

I’m glad that I have grown up in a family where environmental friendliness is a must.  My father is an engineer at a waste to energy facility called Solid Waste Authority.  I believe this has been a huge factor in my environmental philosophy.  My family has always recycled and grown our own fruit in the backyard.  From a young age, my parents also instilled in me “waste not, want not.”  I believe this was due to my grandparents growing up in the great depression.  My family has always saved too much and limited the amount of waste we produce as a house hold.  I have always assumed this to be normal family practice until I got to college.  Living with roommates instead of family helped open my eyes to the way most Americans consume and waste.  Due to lack of time and space, my environmental habits grew worse living in the dorms; but I am currently getting back on track with recycling and saving at my new apartment.

The best way to describe my environmental philosophy is that I try to reduce my ecological footprint.  As a shopper, I try to go for products with less packaging and I often make fun toys for my animals with the left over boxes and other unused materials.  On a daily bases, I also make sure to recycle and reuse materials that I can. Another huge factor that my family practices is sharing and using a product until it can’t be used any more.  For example, every car in my family’s household will be passed on to every family member and be well kept until the car no longer runs.  I believe this has helped to reduce our ecological footprint by simply not wasting unnecessary extra vehicles.  We also do simple daily  habits like shut off the air when we leave the house, turn off lights as we leave the room, and unscrew light bulbs where there are multiple bulbs in one area.  There are all just little steps, but all together they add up to help the environment and lower the bills. 

I like that my family has raised me this way, and it makes me upset that most people have more of the opposite perspective on wasting and our environment. More than anything I hope that our country will work on a better mass transit system. I think it would greatly help our economy and our environment.  I hope there is a lot of change with how people over use our environments resources and work on our sustainability for the future.