Sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Being sustainable in your everyday routine is as easy as turning the water off when brushing your teeth or turning off lights when you leave a room.
The Mayor Frank G. Jackson Summer Youth Employment Program is currently being sustainable by carpooling via taxi’s to field trips, using reusable water bottles and cutting down on paper usage by digitizing many operations. Also, various teams are helping to improve the environment like: Rain Barrel, Rain Garden, Illegal Dumping, Underpass, and Water Cycle Teams. The reason sustainability is important is because every decision or action we take has an impact on our future. If we start now and make rational decisions, it can have a positive outcome on future generations. Some ways to be more sustainable are:
Reducing your food waste can be as simple as not throwing away your leftovers the next day, donating safe and unwanted food to the food bank, and composting food scraps instead of throwing them away to go to the landfill. In the United States nearly one-third of food waste happens because we purchase, cook, or serve more than we can consume. According to the Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations did you know roughly 70 billion pounds of food is thrown away in America each year? Uneaten food goes to the landfill. Upon reaching the landfill the food breaks down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. By now I know you are aware of how important reducing your food waste is, but what you might not know is reducing your trash waste is equally important. You can reduce your trash waste by recycling glass, plastic, metal, paper, and lint, and not using disposable water bottles. Also you’re able to reduce your trash waste by donating old clothing, and opting to buy items with less packaging. Just by reducing your waste you are reducing the amount of trash that goes to the landfill, which then slows the impact it has on the economic and environmental issues. Since there is such a slow decomposition rate which takes thousands of years, thousands of acres of land have been marked temporarily ineffective or overly expensive to restore due to reserved landfill territory
Conserving your water is very important because according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) less than 1% of the water on earth is drinkable. The remaining water is salt water within the oceans or some lakes, frozen in glaciers, or underground. A simple way to preserve your water is when doing laundry wash larger loads of clothes less times per week. Also using water efficient appliances in your home like low flow showerheads, faucets, toilets, washing machines, and dishwashers helps to save water. Also taking shorter showers helps save an exceptional amount of water, and using rain barrels for numerous activities like washing your car with the collected rain or watering your plants. It’s important that we use our water wisely and not waste it because there are not endless supplies of clean water.
Conserving your energy is an easy step you can take towards sustainability. A few things you can do to reduce your energy consumption is replacing an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent (CFL) or light emitting diode (LED) bulb or turning off lights when you are not in a room. Also you could remember to unplug your energy sucking vampires! Energy vampires are electronic devices that still use electricity even when they are powered off, like tv’s, cable boxes, phone chargers, and video game consoles. Another way you could conserve energy is by supporting the use of the most common alternative energy sources, which are, hydropower, wind power and solar power. Hydropower is energy from moving water captured by a water turbine or some other device to produce electricity. The only way you would be able to successfully use hydropower is if you live near a constant water source like a dam, waterfall, or ocean.
Wind energy energy generation happens when the wind spins a wind turbine to produce mechanical or electrical energy. You are compatable for wind power if you live in places that have high wind. Cleveland is well-matched for wind power. Solar power gets its energy from the sun that beams onto a solar panel and chemical reactions within the panel generates an electrical current. Solar power is suggested for people who live in places that are sunny. Conserving your energy will help protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
Transporting in a more eco-friendly way can be obtained in a few different ways. Some ways of greening your transportation are: driving shorter car distances, carpooling to events, using public transportation, roller skating with your friends, cycling to the store, and even walking instead of driving to your destination. Did you know one of the leading causes of global warming is transportation? When you drive your car, you are allowing large amounts of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and waste product gases to escape into the atmosphere and become trapped. Some examples of cars that are a little more environmentally friendly are fuel efficient cars like hybrids and electric cars because they reduce the usage of gasoline and help keep our airways cleaner. Think about that the next time you’re cruising in your gas guzzling car.
Organic foods are produce or other ingredients grown without the help of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms. Pesticides in foods can harm you in various ways; the most common way is that it disrupts the hormones within your body. Some of the most commonly used chemicals or pesticides used in non-organic foods are herbicides, insecticides, and rodenticides. Herbicides are used to manipulate or kill unwanted vegetation. This chemical is applied before and during planting to help increase crop productivity by eliminating other vegetation. Insecticides are used to kill insects in a preventative way before they are able to destroy the crops, and rodenticides are used to kill rodents before they are able to destroy or manipulate the crops.
Eating local organic foods is really just as easy as visiting your fresh foods market to get ingredients that were grown close to where you live. For example, it is better to buy potatoes grown here in Ohio than those from Idaho due to the energy used in transporting the potatoes here. It takes less energy to bring a potato grown in Ohio to our dinner table than one grown in Idaho. Choosing local organic products instead of processed products could protect your health, health of others in the community, and help with restoration of local economies.
You know that old article of clothing that’s just sitting in your closet? How about upcycling it! Up-cycling is reusing a discarded object or material and creating it into something of higher interest to you. I bet you didn’t think doing something so creative could also reduce waste in landfills. Today the concept of upcycling is becoming very popular. Websites like Pinterest and Craftster help to inspire people to use old items to create a new one. There are even community festivals and fairs dedicated to the idea of upcycling. Just think an old shirt or glass jar could become a new and exciting craft for your room! Just by being sustainable you can be creative and save the earth at the same time.
One of the main reasons sustainable living is becoming more popular and well known is because there are so many events, organizations, and initiatives focused solely on sustainability. An example of an initiative is Sustainable Cleveland 2019. Sustainable Cleveland 2019 is a 10-year cause that encourages everyone to come together and help do their part to design a more advanced, beautiful, and eco-friendly Cleveland. Every year has a particular sustainable focal point that’s carried out throughout the whole year, and is also the focus of the annual summit they host. If you want to know more details about Sustainable Cleveland 2019 and the 2015 summit, go to page 45. Simple actions in your daily routines can pave the path for your future and generations to come. JOIN THE GREEN TEAM or get left behind!
When you woke up this morning, you more than likely went to your kitchen or bathroom sink and turned on the tap. Clean water then streamed out and you were able to use it without a second thought. Do you ever wonder where this easily accessible clean water comes from?
Cleveland is located next to the 13th largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Erie. Lake Erie, in its current form, has been providing the area with fresh water for almost 4000 years. Although Lake Erie looks clean and healthy today it has a troubled history. Nowadays, Cleveland and its residents are working hard to ensure our water source is kept clean and safe. Residents of Cleveland can keep our Lake clean, safe, and usable, by understanding water cycles.
Being knowledgeable about water cycles allows a broadened perspective of the environment and why keeping it clean is the way to go. Two types of water cycles that are pertinent to our city are the natural and urban water cycles. In a natural water cycle condensation turns into precipitation. Precipitation can be rain, snow or sleet. In the this cycle the precipitation that falls from the sky is absorbed into the ground or infiltrated into underground water tables where eventually some of the water goes into tributaries (a river or stream flowing into a larger river or lake) and consumed by various plants. This absorbed water is groundwater. Whatever is not absorbed into the ground, runs off into surface water and evaporates, then the cycle circulates again. This is the natural way that water circulates, however due to a large amount of city infrastructure, obstacles disrupt this natural process.
In an urban water cycle, condensation rains down but there is not as much infiltration due to the lack of green spaces. The water source, Lake Erie, is taken to a water treatment plant which is then distributed. The used water is taken to a wastewater collection, which then is taken to a wastewater treatment plant to be filtered and then back to the water source. Storm water and wastewater is sent to water treatment plants in order to remove contaminants, but a problem often occurs within this system. For example, storm water gets discharged to the sewer system, then transported to water treatment plants, however during this process the storm water and waste water mix, which means that the water does not get filtered when going into Lake Erie. Therefore, debris and waste are combined into Cleveland’s fresh water source.
Cleveland was once a wetland area (consisting of swamps, bog, or forest) As more buildings and cities are being created there is more runoff and storm water because the water does not have a place to go. This is a problem because as the water finds its way to Lake Erie, it is picking up dirt, oil, and harmful substances, bringing it into and damaging our water source.
The urban water cycle resembles the natural water cycle, but because times are ever changing the water cycle must evolve into its habitat. Clevelanders can help the water cycle transition a little easier by planting more plants, trees and especially rain gardens in our neighborhood because the plants soak up much of the storm water.
Understanding the different water cycles is only a small part of the solution to a more sustainable Cleveland. The urban water cycle, while damaging to fresh water sources, isn’t going to change on its own. That is why we, as Clevelanders, need to implement sustainable measures to help Lake Erie remain clean and fresh. A few examples of these measures are using more permeable pavement, which is a type of pavement that allows stormwater to seep through allowing the urban area to filter water like the natural cycle. Using rain barrels to collect excess storm-water, from roofs, or planting rain gardens which also help to soak up stormwater.
Keeping Cleveland and Lake Erie clean is crucial for our future and the future of subsequent generations. Understanding the water cycles and working towards keeping our water clean is essential. Clevelanders need their lake and Lake Erie needs its Clevelanders to keep it clean.
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