Getting Your Parents, Friends, and Siblings Involved
Parents are busy. If you can help make green issues easier for them, they might be happier to get green! Get your sisters and brothers involved, too. Here are some things you can do to get your parents, friends, and siblings to help the environment.
Write to the companies that make your favorite foods and ask them to switch to recyclable containers. Consumers do have power!
The Hidden Costs of Education
Most schools spend more money paying for energy, like electricity and heat, than they do on school supplies.
More Catalogs Than People
More than 17 billion catalogs are sent out in the United States every year. That is more than sixty-four catalogs for every person in the country, including kids!
Ask your parents to shop online. It saves gas and time from driving to the store. Remind them that when they order they have to ask NOT to receive a printed catalog with their purchase.
Talk to your parents about making their next car an energy-efficient or hybrid car. Hybrid cars get two to three times the mileage of most cars and they are quiet, so they don't add to noise pollution. They will also save your parents money on gas.
The next time they need stamps, ask your parents to buy federal duck stamps from your local post office. These stamps support wetlands.
Get your parents to thaw the meat for dinner by taking it out the night before and setting it in the fridge. This saves water by not thawing in the sink and energy by not thawing in the microwave.
Talk to your parents about renewable energy. Maybe they would be interested in getting a windmill or solar panel. You never know unless you ask!
Adopt your next pet from an animal shelter.
Take an ecological vacation. Instead of flying somewhere and staying in a hotel, go camping or hiking to a local wilderness area. It's fun and healthy and will cost a lot less than a cruise!
Though recycling is good, not all states have great recycling programs, so it's good to reduce how much junk mail you get in the first place. Here are a few things you and your parents can do to help. To stop getting junk catalogs, make a pile of all your unwanted catalogs and ask your parents to take a few minutes every week and call the toll-free numbers on each one and ask that their names (on the mailing label) be removed from the company's mailing list. You can also send a note to the Direct Mail Association. For $1, they will remove your names from their national database for five years. Make sure you give them everyone's name in your family who gets junk mail, spelled in every way you get them on labels (they are often misspelled). Send your letter to:DMA Mail Preference Service, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512. You can read more about this at:
Before you recycle your junk catalogs, make sure your recycling center takes them. If they do, recycle them with your glossy magazines. If they don't, find a second home for them. Keep them out of the landfill by asking at school if you can put them in the teacher's lounge, or maybe the art teacher can use them for art projects. Ask your recycling center to start taking them, too. It can't hurt to ask!
