This summer I have been in three different countries on three different continents. I thought it would be interesting if I explored various schemes in these countries that are put in place to encourage sustainability.

 I have come across potato skinned plates and cutlery. These are very useful in outdoor meetings or parties and ideal for schools. Children don?t want to waste time by separating their trash into different bins so it?s ideal having decomposable potato skin plates so along with the cutlery and food it all decomposes to form compost. The compost is then used in gardens to grow local vegetables, which is sustainable and also saves energy in the form of travelling costs. This is also quite healthy instead of consuming processed foods as it cuts the down the pyramid of energy, you get more energy and less wastage. 

Be Vegetarian. I am currently in summer school and they have a themed weekly day called Veg- Out Mondays. Did you know that a lot and by a lot I mean A LOT of energy is wasted in preparing and making food. Meat is higher up in the pyramid of energy therefore it needs a lot of energy to be cooked, retains very little and results in a lot of wastage. I learn that 95% less energy is required while cooking vegetarian dishes.

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman' ">      Do have well labeled bins! When I visited Istanbul, I was amazed by how clean the streets were in the area I lived. This is because there were trash cans every five meters and they were WELL LABELLED. It had a section for paper, plastic and other waste that was later sent for recycling.

Do use laundry bags. For those of you in boarding school, when you want to do your own laundry, instead of carrying all your clothes in a plastic bag which will later wear out, use a clothe laundry bag. This way you can carry more for a longer period of time. Also

Instead of using normal switches use sensor switches for electricity. Let?s face it all of us at some point of the other have forgotten to switch of the light and left it switched on throughout the night. This way sensor switches which works with pressure pads only switch on when someone enters a particular room and switches of when there is no one. This has proven to cut down electricity bills by a significant percentage.

In dry hot places of the world, in your school or even in your building try and build as many small water fountains as possible. This is because the small water fountains cool the average temperature therefore less energy and money wastage on using an air conditioning. It?s one of the reasons Ancient Roman?s built numerous of them around the city because at that time A.C?s were not invented!

Lastly when I visited a university, they explained to me one of their goals was to give back to the community. The environment is part of the community and to sustain it, they use bio diesel powered shuttles! It was a student?s idea and now all campus shuttles use this system!

As I continue my travels and education this summer I will keep all of you posted on new environmental sightings.