Hi, my name is Grace and I live in Houston, TX. Living in an industrial city like Houston, it is very important to recycle and reuse as much as we can. I for one take a lunch box to school and use a reusable water container. It reduses trash and saves plastic. I know another thing my family and I do is keep our plastic and paper bags from stores and reuse them for other purposes. Even keeping the plastic containers you get when you order food is a good way of repurposing items. Another great idea is reusing the other side of printer paper for scratch paper maybe. Less paper wasted equals more trees not cut down equals more oxygen in the air and less carbon dioxide. In the link below, it gives creative ideas to reusing items.

Hi, I’m AJ from the USA. Each day our consummation of new products goes up. If we remember the five R’s, refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle, we can make a big difference in the world. By refusing to buy the things that we don’t need in life, we help lessen the amount of trash thrown away. If we reduce the amount of products/plastics/metals/glass we use, we help preserve them for future purposes. If we reuse the products we buy, we cut back the amount of money we spend and reduce the amount of toxins needed to break down and recycle the product already bought. For example: plastic water bottles; instead of throwing them away instantly after you finish the water, reuse it and fill it up with some more water or juice. If we repurpose, we reduce the amount of solid waste that is discarded by giving it a new purpose. For example: old tires; turn it into a tire swing by hanging it from a tree with some rope! As for recycling, always recycle! When a person leaves a plastic water bottle, an aluminum can, or a broken phone lying about, recycle it! Having these products recycled and formed into new ones help the environment. Most importantly though, try and reuse and repurpose the materials/products you have; don’t hesitate!

Since the season of Christmas is on its way, many people are out shopping, wrapping gifts, and putting up their Christmas lights. When people are out shopping, they feel compelled to use the store’s plastic bags. It would be better if people would bring their own reusable bags in order to save plastic! Wrapping gifts is also a huge contributor to people not recycling. If you feel the need to wrap gifts with an excessive amount of paper, then you need to rethink your choices. Bring out that gift bag that you received for your birthday and reuse it! You can also recyle different objects in your home to create seasonal decorations. No matter what you reuse you are still making a difference!
In this video, the artist reused water bottles to create a magnificent piece of art!

Hi, I’m Sara from Houston, Texas! I have not had much luck with past attempts at growing my own food; however this discussion is making me want to try again. I have an aunt who is an avid gardener and some of her home grown food is the best I have ever tasted. Anyways, I was researching green craft ideas and I came across some ways to reuse plastic bottles in a garden. You can use them to help irrigate your plants instead of paying a lot of money for a fancy irrigation system. You can also make a terrarium for growing plants and a worm farm out of a large 2 liter bottle. I like these ideas because they combine two ways of reducing your carbon footprint. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and if you grow food at your own home no fuel needs to be used to transport the food to you. Reusing plastic bottles means that the bottles will not go to a landfill or end up as litter on the side of the road. Also other resources will not have to go into making new items if you can use what you already have to make. I hope others find these ideas to be helpful and if you have any tips on gardening in Houston please let me know.

As we are continuosly overpopulating our Earth and using up all of its natural resources, we are destroying our atmosphere at an increasing rate. This defeats the purpose of helping the environment, which we can all do by recycling. Recycling is fun! You can do this by recycling glass, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, paper, and electronics. This is very beneficial today because it reduces the amount of material in landfills, pollution, and it reduces energy consumption. It affects us because there is an average of a significant change in savings when comparing a person who recycles and a person who doesn’t. If we recycle, then we save more money. Who wouldn’t want that?
I believe that everyone in the U.S. should practice the 3 R’s- reduce, reuse, and recycle.
The following site provides information that further explains this important topic.

The littlest things add up when it comes to saving the environment. Reusing can play a big part in your life and its super easy too. In my family we refuse almost every container we buy; whether its a water bottle, food container, or to-go cup. Recycling also helps a lot too. My family and I recycle and I also collect the neighbors’ recycling too. Reducing the amount of paper and plastic also plays a big part in conservation too.

The importance of recycling is underestimated by many. Just a simple change can make a huge difference in the world’s carbon emissions.
Fist, I would make an effort to purchase items that are meant ti be re-used. For example, metallic water bottles, cloth napkins, or canvas grocery bags.
On top of that, there are so many recycling projects available for anyone. You could use bottles or old plastic cups as a pot for a small plant, or using branches on the street to make drink coasters. You could also sew scraps of old clothing to make a new quilt. For more ideas on DIY recycling projects, visit the following the site.

In my old neighborhood, recycling wasn’t very forced. Recycling trucks rarely even came in our neighborhood, so we were kind of lazy to recycle. Last year, we moved to a new neighborhood where recyling was forced. My school also helped me to start recylcling. When I was taught at school to recycle, and it became a habit, I started doing it at home, and now my whole family is starting to recycle. Recently, I was looking at a website called ecobites, where has little articles about DIY recycling projects that I thought where fun. Recycling isn’t just throwing paper and aluminium into recycling bins, but it is reusing materials. This website shows us how many things can be transformend into new things right in our home. After looking at this website, I looked around in my room and my house to see all the things that could be transformend into better useful things. Recycling doesn’t always have to be throwing things blindly into a recycling bin, it can be transformed into our own homes into something new.

Hi, my name is Emily and I’m a ninth grader from Texas. After calculating my carbon footprint and observing my daily habits, I have noticed how much trash my friends and I throw away from our lunch. By the end of our lunch period, we have numerous plastic bags, extra food, and plastic water bottles that we just throw away. For the past year, I have used a lunch box so I could save the extra paper bags that would otherwise be thrown away. Still, there are ways that I can reduce the amount of empty bags and food just getting tossed into the trash. If we reduced the amount of trash thrown away, my friends and I could reduce our carbon footprint as well as save some money. Using reusable containers and water bottles are a great start in reducing the amount of our trash. Also, it would be more beneficial to us if we maybe packed a little less in our lunch, so we would be sure to eat all of it, and not throw good food away. If we do have to bring items that must be thrown away, then most of the time, those items can be recycled. I think by taking these steps, a lot of unnecessary trash can be eliminated from our land fills.

Hi I’m Kirthy and I am from the U.S. I recently did my carbon footprint thinking that my family would be below average than a normal U.S citizen. However, my family was way above average, from traveling and using up energy. After I showed them my discoverings of how much carbon we had been using, my family had some ideas to cut down, and help the environment. We decided to use less light from lightbulbs and replace it with natural light from the sun, since we have a lot of windows. Sun coming in brings in light and warmth, so aircondition can also be lowered. Traveling is quite hard for us since my brother travels a lot for soocer games each week. We decided that if we can, we should drive to places that we can drive, and carpool with kids whose parents can’t go so we reduce the amount of cars going to a place. The school I go to, is a computer using school. I used to charge my computer every second I got, but now I realized that I can use less time on my computer, so I won’t have to charge it all the time. I can start using the computer whenever I need it, and charge my computer over night. I’m starting to fix within my home, and then I will try and fix other places too.