The forest like a chamber painted
In lilac, golden, purple, green
Stands on the edge of opening,
The wall so exquisite and dainty.
(Bunin)
The end of September. The time of golden autumn with all its flawless beauty.
Trees have already wore its wonderful dresses. The leaves are quietly lying and rustling from time to time. It is one of the best seasons that nature gives us, the loveliness we see thanks to all kinds of trees. We expect this loveliness to appear next year, and next year. Our forests are the “lungs” of the Earth, it is the natural habitat of animals and plants. One hectare of forest absorbs from the air 120-280 kg of carbon dioxide and releases 180-200 kg of oxygen during one sunny day. One medium-sized tree produces enough oxygen for 3 people.
Reading about it, don’t you start to think about our involuntary cruelty to trees: a silent, always humble, asking nothing in return – Green Brothers? But, unfortunately, for the last 10 thousand years man has killed about 2/3 of the Earth’s forests. According to the reports of the Food and Agricultural Organization, deforestation continues around the world with great speed, losing each year 13 million hectares of forest, whereas it is being grown only 6 hectares.
Our life is impossible without forests as life itself is impossible nature. In the era of the ancient civilizations, some rulers understood the consequences of unconscious destruction of forests. The Babylonian king Hammurabi published the first law in the history, which punished with death people who were noticed chopping down trees in the Babylonian state. I wish there were more people today who would like to think about the wisdom of some great men of antiquity..
How much paper is thrown out every day from our offices,houses? How many people sort their garbage, laying the paper separately? Isn’t it one of not many chances for you to do a lot for saving forests and other natural resources? Besides the fact that the landfill will no longer be filled with waste paper, wood for the manufacture of paper, it will be used less, thus we can save the forests of our planet. Unfortunately, these methods are still not common in the world, so much of paper waste is burned or simply buried in the ground.
Everyone’s participation is extremely valuable, since the problem of waste and inefficient use of resources of the Planet affect our immediate future in the most direct way.
In the 1980s in the Soviet Union students at schools were made to collect as much waste paper as it’s possible for the economy of government budget. There was an annual established rate for each school of waste paper collection. Children were going from house to house, collecting old newspapers, books, and other paper.
Waste paper, as in the old days is in demand again. And it is not surprising. Since the process of recycling paper began to bring lots of economic advantages.
In the territory of post-soviet countries school student still participate in it by collecting wastepaper. Each pupil knows that 25,000 books can be made from 1 ton of recycled paper!
In Belarus the rate in September 2012 was much bigger than it was before. It was 20 kg per each student. Many students began to protest, because they have already given all the paper in April waste paper collection. Others complained about living so far away that they can not bring 20 kilos to school. But I think I that it mostly laziness and indifference to the environment they show. As soon as we’ve been announced about the rate of waste paper this year, I decided to surpass the rate and involve students in this action, so that others will take an example from us.
Firstly we took all the paper that we don’t need out of our houses. It was not really much, because, as I said, every student has already given it all in April. So the most important part was to go to near school houses and to ring in each apartment, and ask people for the waste paper.
Benefits were given to each side. People, especially the old, were really happy that someone could help them get rid of all that old books, newspapers, catalogs, copybooks and simple shits of papers that they stored for years in their balconies and pantries. We were surprised how much they had to give us! After weighing the amount of paper we got from 8 families we already got 60 kg of waste paper!
We all were really excited about getting more and more, so we even stopped weighing it on our wages, and only the school stuff said us how much is this pile, and how much is that.
That was only the start. Sometimes we had an unexpected surprise, when one of my classmate had her mother brought by car more than 200 kg of paper, which she stored in her office.
To calculate all we’ve already brought, only our class have saved 10 trees, 20,000 liters of water, 1,000 kWh of electricity and prevented the release of 1,700 kg of CO2! To conclude, if each class will surpass the rate given by the government, our school, which is only one among 24 others in our city, can save a park of trees, a pond of water and a part of the green life on Earth!
Quick Info:
- Date: September 2012
- Location: Belarus