Taperman articles

Do you ever ponder the occurrence of the planet’s resources expiring? There are tons of people on earth and we all continue to use up resources that are not able to be regenerated. Maybe you’ve heard the term “sustainable design”, or maybe you’ve heard people throw around the term, “green”. Will going green really save our planet?

Saving the planet starts with sustainable design, which is actually a pretty simple term. During the production of the means that basically allow our world to function, people manipulate resources. The resources are either renewable or non-renewable, meaning either they regenerate themselves, or they don’t. Non-renewable resources like oil do not regenerate, but renewable resources like timber are able to regenerate themselves…usually. When we design the tools to run our world, sustaining resources, or maintaining them, should be our goal; hence “sustainable design”.

One of the easiest ways to sustain resources in our own lives is the old “reduce, reuse, recycle” routine. Reduce your consumption of products made using non-renewable resources. Use the things you already have over and over; don’t throw away things like waterbottles and then go out and buy new ones! Recycle whenever possible in your home. Allow recycling to be a mission and get the whole family involved, including kids and teens. Kids love to sort and keep any refunds you may get back, while teens look for any excuse to drive-even to the transfer station!

Everything mentioned above should be used not only on a local level, but on a global level. We need to focus on reducing our consumption of non-renewable resources on a national level, reusing what we already have, as well as recycling on a national level which will cause a balance between resources we have available and resources we use. Having balance is extremely important.

So, I guess the moral of this story is to use non-renewable resources in moderation. You can’t swoop in and save the world alone, but without designs aimed at sustaining resources on an individual level, we will never get to it on a national or global scale.

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