To sustain or not to be

Environmental issues such as the increase in pollution and the decrease in natural sources are very common in these days. How do these issues affect our life and the earth? What is waiting for us in the future if we don't take any measure? Where can we start and what can we do? Scientists are talking about a new subject: 'sustainability'. Their common belief is that we must make everything sustainable in our life so as to sustain our future. Sustainability means the ability to continue or keeping something go on. It can be classified into four basic subtopics which are ecological, social, economical and cultural sustainability. I will focus on the most important part of sustainability; ecological sustainability which is about the measures we must take to sustain the ecological life. The three things we can do for a sustainable ecology are recycling, reducing, and reusing.

To begin with, recycling is a process including three basic steps. First, we put our used materials into recycling boxes with respect to their origin such as paper, plastic, glass or aluminum. Then, the boxes are taken to the recycling centers and the materials are turned to new and useable products. Finally, these recycled products are sold cheaper than those which are completely new. Recycling is so profitable that according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's last report which published in 2008, USA gained 236 billions of dollars in 2007 from recycled products. On the other hand, according to the Environment and Forest Ministry of Turkey's last report which published in 2008, Turkey could have gained 156 billions of dollars in 2007 from recycling; however, only %5 of recyclable materials is being collected in Turkey. Using recycling boxes instead of using garbage boxes provides many other benefits. For instance, it reduces our garbage and prevents pollution. It also helps our national economy to improve. In other words, recycling saves our nature and energy sources.

Another important thing we must do for a sustainable ecology is reducing. There are two basic ways we can do for reducing. First, we must break the habit, buying things more than we need. To manage this, we can prefer small shops to big malls and shopping centers. This helps us to save money, time and energy. Because when we go big malls we buy so many unnecessary things that we are surprised when we look at ourselves carrying full bags in our hands. It also decreases the production and protects nature because the less we consume, the less resource is consumed. Also, in restaurants, we should not order more food than we need; hence, we do not leave food in our plates. Because it is be a shame to let food to go to garbage while millions of people are struggling with starvation in all around the world. We can also decrease the weight of our baggage when traveling somewhere. This makes us feel less tired while carrying our baggage. Additionally, less baggage requires less space and energy while being carried in a vehicle. Another important thing we can do about reducing is decreasing our necessities. To manage this, we can prefer public transportations to private automobiles. This will decrease the density of the traffic; hence, we save time. It encourages the society to share more and helps us to save money. We should also give up luxury and live more healthily while decreasing our necessities. For instance, we can prefer bicycles to cars when we go somewhere close. This prevents pollution and makes us fit. We can also prefer fruits and vegetables which are raised in our country to those transported from other countries. This behavior saves our money, prevents pollution and also helps our national economy to grow.

Last but not least, using our materials for different purposes instead of leaving it to garbage when it gets old is called reusing which is very necessary for a sustainable ecology. There are several ways to reuse our materials. First of all, we can use the clothes or shoes of our older relatives when those things don't fit on them. This is valid especially for children because they grow fast. Doing this saves our money and keeps us away from consuming, the most dangerous illness of our century. On the other hand, knowing that someone will use our materials after we are done encourages us to use them more cleanly. Another thing is that we can use our old materials for different purposes. To illustrate, we can use our old chairs in our garden or we can cut our old curtains into several pieces and use them to clean floors.

All in all, recycling, reducing and reusing are three extremely important things we should do to sustain our life. The nature is in a very bad situation because of global warming, air, water and soil pollution, and the lack of energy source; in fact, because of us. No other creature but Homo sapiens is responsible for this situation of the earth and only we can change the situation. If we don't do anything the earth will become an inhabitable place in fifty years. It's all in our hands: to sustain or not to be.