Among the 9 planets in our solar system, Earth is the only planet where life is possible. There are many factors behind it. Nature has created a balance and all the species are interdependent on each other and this contributes to one factor how survival is possible on Earth. Human beings have advanced over the time and have developed techniques to better their lifestyle. During this process, they have ignored certain very important tools which contribute in making the planet a better place to live.
Trees
Trees are the lungs of the planet, which inhale carbon-di-oxide and exhale Oxygen. Presence of Oxygen in the environment is very important for the existence of all species. They filter pollutants out of the air and replace them with valuable oxygen.Trees help to educe ozone levels. They absorb sound and reduce noise pollution. They provide shelter and support to many wildlife species and birds. Trees control flood and reduce the amount of topsoil that runs off into sewers and streams by retaining water. They help to bring rain.
Where trees are helping us out in so many ways, it is also important to know what we the “Human beings” who are gifted with super brains are doing to them.
Let us look at some pictures to understand better.
Cutting down the trees!!!!!!!!!!!!
But why?
Because….we have become so selfish that we don’t care about anything else then our own comfort and luxuries.
There is nothing wrong about thinking of ones own self and adding comfort and luxury to lifestyle. But, is it not equally important to have some responsibility towards Mother Earth? If we cut down the trees, is it not important to plant new ones? Your answer must be Yes, We are doing it. But at what rate?
There is a huge gap between the rate at which the trees are being cut down and new ones being planted. Trees take years to grow up. It takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow up. We are just cutting them at random and creating and more things because of which the rate of disposal has also increased. It now takes lesser time for the products to reach the landfills.
Furniture’s last longer compared to the paper products.
Alone, paper products use up at least 35 % of the world’s annual commercial wood harvest.
Not only this, paper products which are made from the pulp of the trees, also make up the largest part (approximately 40 %) of our trash.
It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper and every year more than 900 million trees are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp mills.
Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
So, we are not just cutting trees to make products, we are also dumping those (products) at a much faster rate.
Paper waste
Can anyone guess how many trees would have been cut down to achieve this crap? Was it worth it?
Solutions for Paper Products:
Reduce, reuse before recycling.
- Internet is a very good solution to reduce the usage of newspapers. Today everyone has internet at their home, where they can easily read the news online. This would save many trees which would otherwise be cut down to generate paper for this purpose.
- In offices, many documents can be shared vial mails and there are software’s which help you save your data’s.
- Reuse the paper products in some form or the other and recycle them.
Recycle paper for the following reasons:
- Recycling one ton of paper saves about 17 trees.
- Making recycled paper instead of new paper uses 64 % less energy and uses 58 % less water.
- A ton of paper made from 100% wastepaper, instead of virgin fiber, saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water and 60 pounds of air-polluting effluents, 4100kwh of energy, three cubic yards of landfill space
- Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
Plant trees
Last but not the least……..Plant as many trees as you can.