Essay Example on Saving the Planet: My Personal Choices Matter

Introduction

There are various personal choices that I make on a daily routine, which have a significant impact on the environment. For instance, means of commuting to various places such as school or going for holidays, types of foods eaten, the period taken to shower, kind of lighting, means of disposing of wastes, and materials used for cleaning. Personal choices can lead to either air, water, or land pollution. To maintain a safe planet, it is essential to make various changes to my personal choices that negatively affect the environment. This essay discusses multiple changes to my personal choices that have significant environmental impacts.

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Transportation

The choice people make on methods of commuting has a significant impact on the environment, communities' health, and traffic congestion. Transport uses energy significantly and consumes petroleum to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon monoxide, which contribute to global warming. Additionally, transportation degrades air quality, degrades water resources, causes noise pollution, and increases the risk of climate change. Among the ways of controlling the environmental impact of transport is reducing personal vehicle emissions. Some of the changes that I have chosen include walking if it is possible, cycling, using public transportation, or rail transit vehicles. The use of public transport helps to minimize environmental impacts by improving air quality, saving energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving land, and facilitating compact growth. Also, public transportation minimizes the need for a lot of personal trips by individual vehicles; thereby, substituting the emissions from various private cars. Most rail vehicles are powered by electricity; hence, they do not contribute to air pollution.

Public transportation and rail transit reduces the emission of greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the regular single personal vehicles. Additionally, public and rail transportation facilitates compact development that preserves lands and minimizes the distances needed by people to reach their destinations. Also, the reduction of congestion helps to reduce emissions from vehicles stuck in traffic. Public and rail transportation can reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by utilizing efficient vehicles that use fuels such as biodiesel and reducing the adverse effects of service operations and road construction projects. Sharing rides in a public or rail transit helps to save fuel that could be used in several personal vehicles. Although a single public vehicle has more energy consumption than private cars, the average quantity of energy used by each passenger is much less. The use of public transport or rail transit will lead to fewer expenses on buying fuel; however, public transportation is sometimes time-consuming and unreliable if a person is in a hurry.

Diet

Although diet has a less immediate impact on land, water, or air; however, its effects are substantial. I have decided to change my eating habit from a meat-based diet to a vegetarian diet because it has the lowest negative impact on the environment. I find it challenging to adapt to the change immediately; therefore, I will start by reducing the quantity of meat to eat. Also, it is vital to reduce the rate at which I consume the endangered species like the fish because the scale of consumption determines the rate of production. An earth-friendly diet constitutes local food, eating fresh food, less meat, and not eating endangered species. Eating local food means that a person will not consume food that has traveled for long distances. Accordingly, fresh food requires less packaging; hence, less waste is generated.

Less consumption of beef discourages the most damaging procedure of food generation, which involves massive rearing of cows. Cows require a large quantity of water and land to feed and grow them. Cows produce a significant amount of methane gas, a greenhouse gas, which is twenty-three times more influential than CO2 (Westhoek et al., 2014). Therefore, switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet declines the impact of the unsustainable production of beef because more land is preserved, and the quality of air improves. Also, overfishing and harvesting the endangered species leads to their depletion. It is essential to consume less fish to discourage the practices that endanger water species. Green diet and fruit have various health benefits because they are rich in fiber, antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins. The green diet reduces the risk of hypertension, heart disease, mental illnesses, and obesity.

Waste

Another personal lifestyle change is reducing, reusing, and recycling wastes. It is essential to containing minimum wastes as possible. For instance, buying less packaged products, reusing things that are reusable rather than throwing them away, or recycling things that are not reusable into more usable products. For instance, shopping bags can be reused for more than two times, or an individual can take them to the supermarket instead of disposing of. If wastes are improperly disposed of, they can end up either in landfills or in water bodies such as oceans and lakes. The biodegradable wastes in landfills produce the awful smell and methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas (Mitchell, 2019). Leachate released as decomposed waste can lead to pollution. Wastes incineration causes air pollution due to the release of toxic substances, which lead to acid rain. Ashes produced from burning can have heavy metals that cause health problems to people. Plastic products that end up in water bodies have negative impacts on living organisms in the water. Therefore, reducing, reusing, recycling, and proper disposal of wastewater is very important as it saves money, minimizes energy and resources use, and reduces environmental impact.

Other personal changes include the use of natural detergents and minimizing the use of electricity. The use of natural soaps such as baking soda to clean the household reduces the number of chemical wastes in detergents used at home. Synthetic detergents can cause serious health problems if inhaled or swallowed. Also, if they are released to land, they cause acidification. Consequently, it is vital to use as little electricity as possible. The use of LED lamps is more long-lasting and effective than fluorescent lighting. It is important to always switch off the lights and electronics if they are not in use. Another personal choice change is taking less time in the shower to minimize electricity consumption. Electricity produced from coal causes high pollution due to the emission of greenhouse gases (Khalil, 2019). In contrast, electricity produced from hydropower and other renewable energies contribute little to the greenhouse effect; therefore, switching to electricity generated from renewable energy helps reduce environmental impact.

Conclusion

Lifestyle choices significantly impact the environment because the consumption of energy has nearly tripled internationally, climate change is evident, and natural resources and endangered species are depleting. It is essential to consider our personal choices and their impact on the environment. To minimize carbon print and improve quality of life, it is crucial to reduce personal driving and embrace public transport means and avoid long-distance traveling. Research conducted by Yin (2016) in the U.S. indicated that more than 20% of the energy used in the country is for transportation leading to a high generation of carbon emissions to the environment. Personal changes like taking a green diet, proper management of wastes, the use of less electricity, and use of natural detergents leads to reduced environmental impacts.

References

Khalil, M. (2019, September 3). How Small Choices You Make daily Impact Global Environment. Retrieved from https://infonile.org/en/2018/07/environmental-consciousness-a-guide/

Mitchell, S. (2019, February 28). 3 Most significant Ways to Reduce Your Environmental Impact. Retrieved from https://www.eomega.org/article/3-biggest-ways-to-reduce-your-environmental-impact

Westhoek, H., Lesschen, J. P., Rood, T., Wagner, S., De Marco, A., Murphy-Bokern, D., & Oenema, O. (2014). Food choices, health, and environment: effects of cutting Europe's meat and dairy intake. Global Environmental Change, 26, 196-205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.02.004

Yin, S. (2016). Lifestyle Choices Affect U.S. Impact on the Environment. Population Reference Bureau. https://www.prb.org/lifestylechoicesaffectusimpactontheenvironment/