1. Recycle!

This seems so simple, but it's often one of the hardest things for college students to do! You can recycle just about anything now, especially here in the U.S. A lot of the problems people have with recycling is not wanting to take the time it takes to take recyclables to designated recycling centers. Most campus’ have some sort of recycling center where you can recycle things like cardboard, certain plastics, glass, paper, and aluminum. Here on Tennessee Tech’s campus we have one located in our Tech Village on campus housing! Anything you recycle makes a difference. Even if it’s putting your plastic bottle in the plastic recycling can on campus or putting last semester’s notes into a paper recycling bin. Here in the U.S. we produce around 254 million tons of trash that goes into our landfills, that’s a lot! If you live off campus here at TTU you can sign up for a service that picks up your recycling and does it for you! They are called R-Cubed. Most students don’t even realize, but by buying or renting used textbooks you are recycling! No matter where you live you can find out how to recycle here.

2. Use Reusable Grocery Bags!

Using reusable grocery bags are great way to reduce plastic waste. These plastic bags are everywhere we turn in our day to day life. Almost every store we go to puts our purchases in them and most of the time we don’t think twice about it.These plastic bags can take from fifteen to one hundred years so decompose in the landfills. You can recycle them, but only about one percent of these bags actually end up being recycled. These plastic bags can also hurt our wildlife in and out of the oceans. The easiest solution is to boycott the bag and use your own! You can get them at almost any grocery store or even TJ Maxx! Just remember to bring them in the stores with you when you go! Learn more about the issue here.

3. Carpool/ Walk/ Bike to Campus!

Here on Tech’s campus parking is always an issue, that’s for sure. So you may already walk or bike from your dorm or near-by apartment. Carpooling, biking, or walking is another great way to be environmentally friendly! When you don’t have as many cars on the road it reduces the amount of greenhouse gases that pollute the air. Here at TTU there are several programs that you can use to carpool and rent out bikes. A new program called RideLife that was created by a student on campus can be used to find others in your area to carpool with. Tech also offers a program called Bike Share that gives students and safe and conservative form of transportation at no cost! You can rent out bikes from New Hall North and the Fitness Center from 7 am until midnight.

4. Take Shorter/Cooler Showers!

Taking a shower is an important part of our day; it helps us wake up in the mornings before class or relax after a long day. An average shower can use about five gallons of water per minute, so just by shortening your shower a couple minutes can save over ten gallons! Also by turning the temperature down you can help conserve energy. Colder water uses less energy and you are more likely to take a quicker shower. As strange as it sounds taking cold showers has several health benefits too. Studies have shown that cold showers can help revitalize the whole body.Who knew! Find out more about those effects here.

5. Turn Off Your Faucet!

Speaking of lowering your water usage, turning off your faucet when washing your face or brushing your teeth can help conserve water too. We all heard it in on Barney growing up.. Never let the water run!

6. Use Reusable Water Bottles!

GET RID OF PLASTIC BOTTLES!! Plastic bottles flood our landfills for years at a time (they can take hundreds of years to decompose). Yes, you can recycle them but again just like the plastic bags so few are being recycled. Using a reusable bottle has become a common aspect of most college students life because it is cheaper. If you prefer to drink of plastic water bottles because it is “cleaner” then you can purchase a water filter for your sink or fridge that can help improve it’s quality. On Tech’s campus, we have various water bottle refill stations that have being helping to eliminate this waste. We even give away reusable bottles all the time!

7. Turn Off Your Lights!

This may seem silly as most of you, especially if you pay your own electricity bill, already do so, but it is so so important. Try not to leave lights on if they aren't being used, especially when watching television. If you live in a house or apartment you can also switch to using energy efficient bulbs, which last longer than regular ones saving you money in more ways than one!

8. Skip out on meat one day a week!

There is an entire movement called Meatless Mondays. It is an international movement that encourages people to skip meat on Mondays to improve not only the planet’s health but their own health as well. Going meatless one day out of the week can help to reduce our carbon footprint and help save resources like fossil fuels and clean water. It also has many health benefits too. Check out the campaign’s website below for more information and recipes on how you can go meatless on Mondays!

9. Buy beauty products with natural ingredients, specifically exfoliants!

This is a tough one. Most of us have certain products that we have used forever and that we swear by, but what we don’t think about is what is inside them. Many products that we use every day, such as toothpaste, body scrubs, and face wash have tiny colored plastic beads in them called microbeads that are used to exfoliate away the dead skin or dirt. These beads are so tiny that we hardly ever notice that they are there. You may think that there is no way something so small could be so bad, but you’d be wrong. These plastic microbeads go on your face, down your drain, and into our lakes and streams. One tube of face wash can contain more than 300,000 of these beads. The beads eventually make their way into our oceans and into the stomachs of ocean creatures, many of which we enjoy eating! Along their journey, these beads can act like micro sponges and soak up any toxic chemicals they come in contact with. These chemicals then leech out into our seafood. While there is no known way of cleaning these beads out of our waterways, we can do our best to not put anymore out there! Several non-profit organizations and companies in the United States have fought hard on a ban of all microbeads that will take full effect in 2018. But that is two whole years from now. You can do your part by avoided products that contain the words polyethylene and polypropylene in the ingredients (I’ve even found them in make up!!) and purchase products with natural exfoliants! You can find what products contact them and how to avoid them here. There are so many companies who offer products with natural exfoliants that I think work even better. One of my favorite companies that have fought hard against mirobeads is Lush Cosmetics!

10. Unplug

Last but not least, power down and unplug appliances when they aren’t in use. This can help save energy and cut cost on your electricity bills! You may have heard of this before but leaving your appliances plugged in use up “ghost” electricity just by being plugged in. An easy fix is to buy a surge protector and turn it off when you leave for class of before bed!