GOING GREEN?

By going green, I don't mean painting your car and house green and wearing green clothing. Also, it doesn't mean you go to places where there are a lot of green mountains, camp into the thick untouched jungle, drink from contamination-free springs of water sourced from land no one has ventured into yet.

The The majestic Mount Kinabalu, taken from a spot near SMK Tamparuli entrance. On the foreground is Bukit Perahu, the highest altitude one can walk up to in Tamparuli.

It simply means we take good care of our earth, preserve the well being of our mother nature. How, you may ask? Well it does not take a rocket science professor or a linguistic doctor to explain the word ACTION.

Yes, it is as simple as that. It is through our determination and discipline to take action that matters when we are talking about getting result from what we intend to achieve. Here are some toughts about going green:

1. Remember when you bought your first cellphone? Cellphones are now one of the biggest culprits in polluting the earth. So, keep your electronics (cellphone, computers, PLCs, etc) as long as possible. If you don't need them, donate them to others who may still have some use for them.


2. Be a smart buyer. For instance, do not buy cheap products if you are in a position to buy a better-quality, last-longer items so that you do not have to replace them too often. Buying in bulk saves you money and at the same time it helps reducing the cost of packaging.


3. Save energy and help yourself save some money. Set the automatic 'Off' to a time you think you'll not need a heater/air-conditioner before you go to bed. Energy saving bulbs or lamps are about 4 to 5 times more expensive than normal ones but they save you money in a long run. So consider one during your next bulb replacement.


4. Do you enjoy spending long time in the bathroom? If so, it is highly possible that you may have been wasting water all this while. Take shorter shower and you may just have saved few cubic meter of water at month end, and plug some leaks on your wallet too. Can you afford to water your plants using raw water? Because that would save chemicals for water treatment, and help your neighbours residing at higher ground to get their water supplies.


5. What about car pooling and using public transportation. Yes, I am talking about trying to reduce gas emission. We all know about this and how important it is to have gas free environment; it is just about whether we are willing to take ACTION and do the right thing.


6. Can I go wrong, environmentally, with my eating behaviour? Yes you can. For your own good take good look at your health when deciding what to eat. From 'green' point of view, eating one meatless meal a week can go a long way on saving some cost on cold storage and less pollutants from the related refuse. From health point of view, you reduce the risk of possible complications resulting from excessive consumption of meat.


7. Can you resist the temptation of the convenience of drinking from bottled water? Remember, bottled water generate a large quantity of container waste, especially plastic. So, use water purifier instead.

And the list goes on. There are many other little things that we can do and that we have been doing which we think were too small to mention. What we learnt during our school days to maintain cleanliness, health, and eating moderately surely have some substance in them. Do appreciate our teachers!

JFD