Mindzle

Posts Tagged ‘ecology’

Usually the time we get as leisure is spent on recreation. It has an important function in our lives. Amidst the stress and strain of modern life, recouping and energizing the body and mind is vital. There are many ways that this can be done. Some of them are bungee jumping, skiing, hang gliding, snowboarding, rock climbing, sky diving, backpacking, canyoning, motor sport, adventure tourism and ecotourism. Ecotourism is where one visits the natural habitats to enjoy nature. However, there are two kinds of ecotourism in vogue. The first is what has come to be called responsible ecotourism. This is when the visitor is sensitive and respectful to nature and feels socially responsible to protect it. The focus here is on learning from nature and reflecting on the adverse human impact on nature. Central to it is the profound appreciation of nature. The second category is where nature becomes incidental to profits. Primarily a commercial enterprise, nature becomes a commodity for business. Tragic enough, this type of ecotourism continues to dominate.

Ecotourism is promoted indiscriminately without concern either to ecology or local culture. Ecotourism is made a mere marketing tool. Resorts, lodges and luxury hotels are located in rich natural locations and often in ecologically sensitive areas. These facilities offer modern luxury with all the wasteful lifestyle. Ecology becomes a commodity to be exploited rather than respected and conserved. Building tourism infrastructure in the name of promoting ecotourism leads to deterioration of the habitat and deforestation. The more the facilities the more are the waste generated. A large number of visitors also mean more garbage and pollution. Many of these ecotourists have no understanding of the ecological consequences of their visits and how their lifestyles in these tourist facilities impact on nature.

Responsible ecotourism on the other hand is in stark contrast to this destructive ecotourism. Typically the visitors come unobtrusively in small groups. They invariably carry their survival needs in their backpacks. These include flashlight, first aid kit, personal care products, utensils and map amongst others. Sleeping bag and the camping tent are the most important for their minimal comforts. There are many camping tent manufacturers such as Black Diamond, Sierra, Kelty, Eureka and MSR who manufacture tents. Camping tents are designed for different seasons and capacity. The features that come along with it can be previewed from each of the reviews of these tents for instance searching the Internet for MSR Hubba Hubba reviews.

Camping is usually associated with responsible tourism because the negative aspects of tourism are minimal. There is much attention given to energy efficiency, recycling, water conservation and economic benefits to local communities.

There are many books & websites with more than enough advices on how to live green. Albeit being a Toronto real estate professional gives me plenty of changes to talk about the many ways of eco-friendly living with my clients, my topic today will be a bit more specific. Most people have already read the most important eco-tips, so we are not going to try to summarize them here again. Our today’s topic will be the three everyday items that we usually don’t even consider to be a problem: food, water and electricity.

Food

As I suppose that most people don’t just dump paper, glass and metal waste but recycle it, the rest of your household waste will be mainly food. Most of this food would usually be in very good condition, sometimes not even out of its wrapper or container. The shocking fact is that between 20 and 30% of all groceries bought by Canadian families is thrown out later. Together with the food thrown out in stores and restaurants, it makes between 7 and 14 billion tonnes of food wasted annually. In Canadian dollars, that’s $3 to 5 billion per year.

These numbers are quite surprising, aren’t they? The main paradox is that we throw out so much food daily and at the same time so many charity organizations are working hard, trying to help people who don’t have enough to eat. But wait before you start packing the groceries you are not going to use and sending it to places full of hungry people. There are some other methods you might want to try instead of throwing the food away. 1. Do you have any food left from yesterday? Try to use it for today’s lunch. For example you can stuff some peppers with some remaining rice. 2. A good way of preventing groceries going past the expiry date is arranging your food cabinet by this criteria: older food, that is going to expire soon, is stored in the front, while the longer lasting products can stay in the back of the shelves. 3. If you know you will not eat food that’s just about to expire and would consequently throw it out, just bring it to your local charity or soup kitchen or similar place while the food is still in good state. If you cannot use up all the groceries you have purchased, there are enough people even in your community who will be grateful to eat it – hunger is not limited to Africa. 4. Do not waste leftovers – mulch it. If you do not own a garden, find somebody who does. Food simply doesn’t belong to dumping grounds.

Water

You probably already know many advices on how to prevent using more water than necessary in your home. One thing that occurs to me when thinking about reasonable water usage is the way we manage human waste: toilets. Nowadays, toilets are absolutely inherent – when they are working alright, we don’t even need to pay any attention to them. However, have you tried to calculate how much water your household needs every month for flushing the toilet? You might be shocked by the big number you get out of this. And has it ever occurred to you that this quantity is not essential, that flushing your lavatory can be done using less water? You can try these two methods to using less water for flushing: 1. Replace your old lavatory by a new type that has been designed to use as little water as possible. Go and check out the selection in your local shop, it is amazing how wide it is nowadays! 2. If you put a couple of plastic bottles full of water into the tank of your lavatory, it will help you to save some water for flushing as well. It may take some time to find out just how much is the minimum amount of water for your lavatory to keep working.

Electricity

You have probably already read a lot of tips and tricks on how to save electric energy. What I personally regard as being the biggest electricity waster is the often used tumble dryer. We got used to having anything we like or need immediately, that we no longer care how much superfluous resources are wasted just because we don’t want to wait. It is quite obvious that in our current lifestyle, there is not enough time for washing our clothes manually, and that dishwashers do really save some water. Though the advantages of a tumble dryer might be less obvious. Would it be such a great problem if we just waited 1 – 2 days for our laundry to get dry? In case your green ambitions are serious, try to think about turning your tumble dryer on in urgent cases only, or even think about saying goodbye to it at all – you can sell it or give it to someone else. In addition to the environment, you will save some money on your electricity bills as well.

Most of us don’t think about recycling much past when the driver picks it up or we drop it off at the local recycling center.  Of course, the process of making new material from used items is important, but in the course of everyday life it just doesn’t make it through all of the other concerns in the day.You could schedule a visit to the closest recycling plant and see the recycling process for paper looks like up close and personal.  Most companies are more than willing to share the process and information behind taking scrap paper and making it usable again.The best way to really show people that their efforts matter.  However, it’s a little faster to learn about the recycling paper process by reading about it.

Nothing can happen in the recycling paper process without one very important element.  People willing to take the time and save their paper products are vital to the success of any recycling effort.  The entire process starts with you, the consumer, in other words.Whether you drop your stuff off at the recycling bin or have it picked up, the process can’t start until you become a part of it.

Once the paper makes it to the center, the first step is pulping.  In the recycling process for paper, this means that water is added to large amounts of used paper and agitated to produce pulp.After the paper is sufficiently broken down, the pulp is pushed through a series of screens to separate the larger pieces of contaminants from the useable paper pulp.The somewhat clean paper is then placed in a machine that uses centrifugal cleaning to spin more of the debris from the paper pulp.

The next step in the recycling process for paper is to remove the ink.The water and paper pulp mixture is brought to a flotation treatment.Surfactant is added to the mix and it forces the ink to release from the paper causing it to float to the surface for easy removal.The pulp is now ready to be kneaded and broken into fibers further.  The final washing is done with clean water to get rid of any contaminants or particles that is still hanging on.If the paper is intended to be white, a bleaching process is started by the workers.

The recycling process for paper is then completed with presses to form the new, recycled paper into its proper shape and size.  As you know, recycled paper and paper products usually bear the famous recycling logo so you can pick products that were made with environmentally safe techniques.